
Class. 
Book. 



LETTERS 



TO THE 



SOUTHERN PEOPLE 

CONCERNING / ^/ 

THE ACTS OF CONGRESS 



AND 



THE TREATIES WITH GREAT BRITAIN, 



IN RELATION TO THE 



AFRICAN SLAVE TRADE. 



CHARLESTOIV, S C- 

STEAM POWER PRESS OF WALKER, EVANS & CO. 

1858. 



i::^-f3S 



PREFACE. 



The following letters were originally published in the "States"' newspaper at 
Washington. They are now respectfully submitted to the Southern Public in 
their present form at the request of several who have read them with entire coin- 
cidence of sentiment. They have no pretension to elaborateness nor even fulness 
on the points upon which they bear, but if enough has been said to invite unbi- 
ased reflection on the part of his Southern fellow-citizens, the Author is content. 



LETTERS TO THE SOUTHEM PEOPLE. 

FROM A FELLOW COUNTRYMAN. 
No. 1. 

" The manifestoes of Exeter Hall " If our {British) neighbors choose to 

must for once be defensive and apolo- submit to the consequences of their abo- 

getic ,• for the world is now wiser than lition theories, the rest of the world is not 

when pulpit and platform resounded obliged to adopt them as its rule of con- 

with indignant appeals to humanity, five duct. Their code of philanthropy is not 

and tw^enty years ago." — Loiidon Times, a law for us." — Paris Constitutionnel. 

Never, perhaps, since the birth of the Republic, have we, fellow- 
Southerners, been more united. This should serve to cement our 
efforts in the great struggle to which events are hurrying us on. 
Let us then throw minor differences out of view, and reason calmly- 
together upon pressing dangers and wants of prime consequence. 
Most of the purely party questions of the Federal Union have 
passed, and the one inherent sectional difficulty of the compact must 
eventually stalk forth in the grim reality of its huge proportions. 
The days of the old '^Federalists'^ and "Republicans'^ are gone 
and their statesmen repose in forgotten graves. 

It is so with the Madisonian ''era of good feeling." Even De- 
mocracy and Whiggery are over; at least ive are no longer divided 
by these obsolete party lines. The questions of embargo and non- 
intercourse, of the tariff and internal improvements, of a national 
bank and a sub-treasury, are consigned to oblivion and will know 
no resurrection. But ive in our day and generation have a much 
graver ordeal to pass through. It behooves us then to ''put on 
athletic habits for the contest," to marshal our forces for the gather- 
ing storm, and to silence the voice of internal rivalry, in preparation 
for the day which shall witness a regenerate, united and disen- 
thralled South. 

To do this, our opinions should be confirmed, definite, and set- 
tled, as to the real grounds upon which our system of slavery — the 
institution we must «^/ battle for — rests. As yet, the struggle is 
essentially one of opinion-; but, unfortunately, we have all, to a 
greater or less degree, been reared under the influences of a very 
mistaken sentiment, and time is required to shake off the burden 
of error. This necessary work, however, is gradually progressing. 
The Southern mind has, in thirty years divested itself of many 



6 

cardinal errors of the negfro mania, and this timely deliverance has 
strengthened slavery beyond calculation. Let the work continue. 
It does go bravely on. Indeed it cannot be checked. 

Yet though these errors have been exploded, their effects, through 
the laws enacted during their existence still remain. It is for us 
to remove them. Nor must it be supposed that, because some of 
the legislation of our fathers is considered errrmeous, any idea of 
reproach is entertained; neither is the unguided spirit of innova- 
tion at work. That trait which charms with veneration the acts of 
our ancestry, is one of the noblest of our nature; nevertheless, to 
discover and avoid their errors is an imperative duty of our reason- 
ing faculties. Wherein else consists the value of experience? If 
mankind had not been endowed with the capacity to perceive and 
the prudence to avoid the errors of their forefathers, civilization 
had never progressed. Call to mind a few incidents in our own 
brief history. 

Among the most "illustrious Southerners" of the revolutionary 
epoch were Washington, Jefferson, and Madison. It is fre- 
quentlyj'said that, since they lived and died slaveholders, nothing 
they did, nor no measure they advocated, could have been other- 
w^ise than beneficial to slavery, still less hurtful to it. Put this to 
the test of fifty years' experience. Washington is universally 
acknowledged to have been both good and great. But suppose 
the last act of his life had been an example generally followed in 
this country; who can estimate the deplorable consequences? 
His last will and testament emancipated all his slaves. Suppose 
every slaveholder in the country had done the same; what would 
be the present condition of the South ? Post obit emancipations 
are now regarded "death-bed follies;" just complaints are rising 
against the custom; many States forbid it; yet the " Father of his 
country" set the obnoxious example ! 

Jefferson, also, the "Apostle of Liberty," the great leader who 
checked the growth of consolidation, and gave life and shape to 
the principles of State-rights and other political doctrines to which 
we all cling, was the originator of the proposition that "no more 
slave States should be admitted into the Union." It was, I think, 
in 1781, that he reported to the Continental Congress a plan of 
Territorial government, which prohibited slavery in the Territo- 
ries after the year 1800. It was defeated by a single vote. But 
Mr. Dane, of Massachusetts, took up the idea six years after, and 
grafted it on the (jrdinance of 1787. 

Madison, too, whom we all love to honor, and whose memory 
we revere, besides his active opposition to the use of even the 
word slave in the Constitution, suggested, in 1790, as an object 
well worthy of consideration, whether preventive regulations 
might not be made in relation to the introduction of slaves into the 
new States to be formed out of the Western territory; thus stand- 
ing sponsor for Mr. Jefferson's idea of preventing the formation 
of new slave States — of all others the most repugnant to the wishes 
and welfare of the South now. 



If such men as these were liable to pursue a policy inimical to 
the vital interests of the South, it is but reasonable to expect that 
the "lesser lights" of even the galaxy of that day should be 
equally fallible. Such, in fact, was the case. From Massachu- 
setts to Georgia slavery was generally regarded " a reproach/' "a 
blight," "a blot on the country," "a political, moral and social 
evil." The result was a general tone of apology for its continu- 
ance ; a vague expectation of its ultimate abolition ; its immediate 
termination in some of the States; its exclusion from the Territo- 
ries; and an effort to prevent its growth by prohibiting a further 
importation of slaves from abroad. The whole Union was drifting 
down the stream of Abolition, until profits began to neutralize 
philanthropy; the economist confronted the moralist, and the 
strange delusion was dispersed before the penetrating rays of truth 
and reason. By this timely interruption, however, the course of 
events was only diverted to what has now become a beaten track. 
A systematic course of legislation, growing out of this Abolition 
sentiment, has placed the South in a false position in the Union, 
and, what is more to be lamented, has, to no little extent, familiar- 
ized Southern men with a tone of arrogant defiance on the part of 
their Northern enemies, which their better impulses would not 
otherwise brook and upon which the calculating politicians of the 
hireling States would not otherwise dare to venture. From this 
fact, if from no other, we receive a solemn admonition to beware of 
this beaten track, now lying stretched out before us. We see 
where it leads to; let us abandon it. It is time we should take a 
new departure, and, in our journey through the wilderness, we 
should w^atch with care the variations of our compass, and note 
well the errors which have set false landmarks to our course. 

In venerating the memory of a past generation, let us avoid a 
blind subserviency to its prejudices and its fallacies. In lavishing 
praise upon the illustrious names of history, let us be mindful to 
profit by the lessons they teach. The history of every nation 
reveals this truth : — Posterity must learn, as well from the errors 
as the maxims and precepts of the statesmen and warriors who 
have added lustre to its pages. It is so with the unfinished page 
of American history. The very first line graven upon it is a pre- 
posterous fallacy — ^^ all men are created equal 1" Every act of our 
lives, every law of the land, and every mature reflection of the 
human mind, is a contradiction to this; let us, therefore, fellow 
Southerners and slave-holders, correct the record in every particu- 
lar we can, by rising superior to that calculating fraternity with 
whom, so far, we are united under the bonds of a political com- 
pact, by making good at all hazards our mastery over that inferior 
race with whom we are so profitably and so peculiarly connected, 
by mounting up to the grandeur of our exalted mission, and 
thereby establishing upon'^Azs continent, and in the face of the 
wide world, our institution as palpably and as unmistakably as the 
city which sits upon a hill and cannot be hid. 



No. 2. 

"The battle of the negro will have "It is the business of Great Britain 

to be fought by the philanthropists with to bring these fanatical Abolitionists to 

a great diminution of prestige, the re- reason. The consequences of their 

suit of falsified predictions and blasted false doctrines have aftected us. Our 

hopes. The Broughams and Wilber- colonies have suffered from lack of 

forces of the present day will have to hands, as well as the English colonies, 

adopt a somewhat humbled tone." — and it cannot be any longer endured." — 

London Times. Paris Constitutionnel. 

Having in the preceding letter congratulated you upon your 
prevailing unanimity of sentiment, and invoking now a continuance 
of harmony, it is but natural to inquire whether, in the existing 
critical position of federal politics, your correspondent has any 
measure to propose, for the consummation of which all the South- 
ern States are likely to unite. The answer is negative. But 
while the Government is disposing of the Kansas question, of the 
Central American and the Nicaraguan question, and others in its 
charge, it is but proper that the people, at their firesides, should 
contemplate subjects of grave importance, though as yet not in- 
volving either parties or politicians. To some of these let me 
invite your calm and dispassionate attention, in the simple way 
of social discussion, and not in a spirit of political controversy; 
premising, at the outset, that in a community of States embracing 
so vast a territory, and yielding such a variety of produce as ours, 
it would be unreasonable not to expect some apparent conflict of 
interest and opinion ; but that this diversity relates in point of fact 
to matters of secondary importance, and can, with a little mutual 
concession — so becoming in our case — be surely obviated. 

Among the several questions which now engage the attention of 
Southern men, and, in fact, of the commercial world, is that relat- 
ing to a competent supply of labor in our cotton, rice, tobacco, 
sugar, and other fields, or, 'as it has got to be called, the question 
of the slave-trade. To some, perhaps, in the retirement of hogie, 
and unaware of actual facts, this topic may seem startling. To 
others, in public life, it may be annoying. Why should it be ? 
It is two hundred and fifty years old. The Abolition side of it 
has been thoroughly discussed; may it not be time, is it not full 
time, that the slavery side of it, our side of it, should be under- 
stood ? As far back as the year 1788, one of the sternest patriots 
of one of the staunchest Southern States, in open defiance of the 
Abolition influences of his day, took his unalterable position on 
the slavery side of this question. Rawlins Lowndes, of South 
Carolina, than whom no American was more respected for all the 
virtues of a patriot and statesman, asked : " What cause was there 
for jealousy of our im])orting negroes ? Why confine us to twenty 
years, or rather, ivhy limit lis at all? For his part, he thought 
this trade could be justified on the principles of religion, humanity 
and justice; for certainly to translate a set of human beings from 



9 

a bad country to a better, was fulfilling every part of those prin- 
ciples. * * =t^ Without negroes, this State would degenerate 
into one of the most contemptible in the Union, and whilst there 
remained one acre of swamp land in Carolina, he would raise his 
voice against restricting the importation of negroes." Let us then, 
with the experience of three quarters of a century, and as the 
people most interested, deliberate upon it, not as advocates, as 
pleaders, nor as partizans, but as we are, honest men seaching for 
truth, that it might prevail. 

Some of the Southern papers and periodicals have already sug- 
gested the investigation. The New Orleans Delta, the Charles- 
ton Standard, and others, were early and zealous in the field. 
Among the rest the Charleston Mercury, in the fall of 1854, 
asked : " Is it not time to look at this matter as involving questions 
which, stretching beyond the narrow vision of dreamers, demand for 
their solution calm inquiry and sober discussion ? Does not the 
slave-trade, in supplying to many flourishing States the labor 
needful to their development, in abundantly furnishing to the 
world the most useful products of human labor, in bringing the 
savage within the pale of civilization and Christianity; and lastly, 
by still progressing in its work, in defiance of all attempts at its 
suppression, rightfully claim for itself an origin higher than mere 
avarice, and a recognition at the hands of Government other than 
is accorded to the buccaneer and pirate? We desire to see this 
question taken out of the hands of empty-headed fanatics, who 
have all along usurped its control," &c. 

The effort has been made, and is and will be persisted in, to 
take this question ''out of the hands of empty-headed fanatics," 
and to solve it, in the fullness of time, by means of '' calm inquiry 
and sober discussion." But it|is to be regretted, that as soon as 
this desired inquiry and discussion is begun, by those at least not 
considered "empty-headed fanatics," the same journal should find 
it necessary, in June, 1857, to ask, "Why agitate it?'' and to 
answ^er its question of 1854, "is it not time to look at this matter," 
&c., by saying: "When the re-opening of the African slave-trade 
is a practical measure, by a dissolution of the present Union, it 
will be ti)ne enough to consider the policy of renewing it. When 
that time comes ive will be prepared freely to discuss it; but until 
then we submit with great deference, that it appears to us silence 
is our better policy.'^ 

Such inconsistencies as these, however, cannot control, noreven 
deflect the current of events. Calm inquiry and sober discussion 
have commenced, and silence, among the people of the Southern 
States, on this subject, whether in or out of the Union, is now 
impossible. Slaver}^ and the slave-trade are indissoluble in the 
minds of thinking men all the world over. In the words of the 
distinguished Robert Hall, "they are integral parts of the same 
system — one is not more defensible than the other — we have both 
to defend; and the London Times is eminently right in saying: 
"Jt requires no great foresight to perceive that a great contest is 



10 

approaching on the subject of slavery and the slave-trade." In this 
CONTEST OUR DESTINY WILL BE THE STAKE. Did ever a people have 
more at venture? Should we then — can we — will we be silent? 

The essence of all dispute relating to slavery and the slave- 
trade, in their moral aspect at least, is a radical difference of 
opinion as to the right of man to hold property in man. It all 
comes down to this. And without discussing this question of right, 
which has long been settled in our minds, let us understand what 
is meant by holding property in man. 

This has different meanings in different countries and under 
different laws. In some parts of Africa, for example, property in 
man means literally "property in human flesh," so harped on by 
Abolitionists. The master is a cannibal, and holds his slaves 
under cannibal laws. In other quarters, though cannibalism does 
not prevail, the power of life and death obtains, as in many of the 
ancient nations. Even in modern Europe the remains of a former 
system of bondage are wide spread and striking, as is well illus- 
trated among other works in the recent publication of M. F. Le 
Play. (Les Ouvriers Europeens Imprim^ par V Autorisation de 
rEmpereiir.) In some quarters the "operatives" are mocked 
with the name of liberty only that they may be rendered more 
thofDughly the bondmen of capital. Elsewhere, the "property" is 
hereditary and happy, while, again, the self-imposed condition of 
the workman's existence is to pass his days in the service of a 
master. The labor of his whole life is absolutely mortgaged in 
payment for the money bestowed upon him in youth, and old age 
overtakes him before the debt is cancelled. And in the densely 
populated districts, where the hireling system is in perfection, 
labor is irretrievably within the power, and in that sense the 
property of, the most grinding capital. It dies out from sheer 
destitution, or best exists in a state of chronic starvation. So true 
is this, that in many parts of Europe, it has been reluctantly con- 
ceded, the felon in his cell enjoys substantial comforts which 
cannot be honestly earned by thousands upon thousands of the 
hirelings out of doors. 

Different from all these is our system of labor, our property in 
man. With us this property does not consist in human "flesh," 
but in human labor. Our property in man is a right and title to 
human labor. And where is it that this right and title does not 
exist on the part of those who have the money to buy it? The 
only difference in any two cases is in the tenure. Labor and land 
are'lhe two sources of all wealth, the one active, the other passive. 
Capital, therefore, will always be invested in labor, the active 
source. And the nature of the laws, both moral and municipal, 
which control such investment, must always be determined by a 
combination of causes peculiar to each country and people. Our 
slave property lies only incidentally in the person of the slave, 
but essentially in his labor. Who buys a slave, except he has 
work for him'? Mis person is held as the only sure means of ob- 
taining his labor. The proprietorship of his person extends only 



11 

so far as the derivation of a fair amount of labor. The value of 
the slave is determined by the sort and amount of labor he is ca- 
pable of^ and it is according to these that he is bought and sold ; 
and it is undeniable that these are the same conditions which de- 
termine the hireling's wages. In fact, we own our slaves for their 
labor. We govern them as men. We reward and punish them 
as moral agents, and are fully aware of and quite reconciled to 
our obligations in the premises Abolitionists call our slaves 
chattels ; let them have it so. If labor is a chattel, we prefer the 
African article; they are free to make their own selection. 

With this understanding of what we mean by ^'property in man/' 
and assuming our right to hold such property, it is needless to 
show that it must be liable to all the incidents common to property 
in general, prominent among which is a change of owners — sale 
and purchase. Yet in some of our treaties, and throughout our 
legislation, the sale and purchase of slaves is denounced as crim- 
inal. The vocabulary is exhausted of its approbrious epithets. 
And the same authority which professes to protect the property 
denounces its sale and purchase. Look at the record of the last 
half century. There you find act upon act, resolution upon reso- 
lution, treaty upon treaty, all denouncing as nefarious, inhuman, 
unjust, and piratical, this acknowledged contingency of slave 
property, and even invoking the execration of mankind upon those 
who transfer it. Is this consistent? What is property, if it can- 
not be bought and sold ? And if slave property cannot be bought 
and sold, except in the teeth of the most unmeasured governmental 
reprobation, and at the risk of a pirate's doom, is such property 
upon a footing of equality with all other property, the traffic in 
which is exempt from that reprobation and risk? If the importa- 
tion of one description of property is taxed 80 pjr cent., the tax is 
denounced as b. protective tax. What would we say if the import- 
ation were prohibited altogether? Labor, we know, is bought 
and sold everywhere. Every capitalist in America buys it daily. 
If, then, slave labor cannot be imported, is not the prohibition 
worse than a protective tax for the benefit of hireling labor, the 
only other kind which can be imported ? 

Upon udiat, then, do these laws rest? Why is the importation 
of slaves, unlike all other property, prohibited? The recorded 
answer is : ^'■The traffic in slaves, is irreconcilable with the princi- 
ples of humanity and justice." Do we, fellow-Southerners, sub- 
scribe to this doctrine ? Which one of our State Legislatures will 
prohibit "the traffic in slaves," within its jurisdiction, upon the 
ground that it is inhuman and unjust ? The opinions of the entire 
Southern population in relation to slavery and all its adjuncts have 
changed, and are changing. Let them find utterance. Ours is a 
government of opinion. And our liberties are in danger, if we, 
"the people," are not prepared, able, and determined to carry out 
our convictions to their legitimate results. 



12 



No. 8. 



"But politicians and the public, and "Are not these reasons sufficient to 

even the friends of the slaves them- induce us to look to Africa for laborers 

selves, have now begun to see matters for our own colonies ? Our planters, au- 

ia a clearer light. Our own colonies thorized by a Government careful of their 

are impoverished, but the sum of slave- interests, have turned their attention to 

ry is not diminished ; it has only been that quarter. African emigration has 

transferred from us to more grasping, commenced ; it is pursued with energy, 

pitiless, and unscrupulous hands."' — and we hope it will continue until our col- 

London Times. onies revive." — Faris Constitntionnel. 

No general custom can be ''irreconcilable with the principles 
of humanity and justice," which has lawfully existed in all ages, 
and has received the sanction of the Creator, Governor, and Judge 
of mankind. "Of the heathen that are round about you" shall 
ye " buy bondmen and bondmaids." "They shall be your bond- 
men forever" — is a divine injunction, which has indeed been dis- 
covered to be piratical by the new lights of the nineteenth cen- 
tury, but which no believer in God, be he Jew or Gentile, should 
regard as irreconcilable either with the principles of humanity or 
justice. Certainly none in the South so consider it. 

It is quite true that in one of the churches it was once forbidden 
• to buy or sell slaves; but tliat^ like many other regulations, both 
of church and state, was the creature of a diseased sentiment long 
since extinct, and is now not only obsolete, but rapidly becoming 
erased from the discipline of the church South. It is to be hoped 
the municipal laws of like absurdity may share the same fate. 
The truth is, no Southerh man, having the plainest understanding, 
believes that the sale and purchase of slaves is wrong. This geri- 
eral proposition, then, which is the foundation of all moral opposi- 
tion to the importation of slaves, being universally repudiated at 
the South as false, specious, and contrary to the right of property 
in slaves, which is recognized and protected by the Constitution 
and laws of the United States ; let us see if any particular system 
of traffic in which we are interested is obnoxious to the grave 
charjreof injustice, inhumanity, and piracy. 

The only two systems of slave-trade in which we are immedi- 
ately concerned are the American and the African, the one confined 
to the Southern States, the other formerly, and soon again to be, 
conducted between some of them and Africa. It is to be presumed 
that none of us are prepared to denounce the American slave-trade. 
Compare it with the African. Take the case of a Virginian and 
an African slave, each purchased for a cotton-field in Texas. The 
Virginian slave is born and reared in a Christian land. The influ- 
ences of a refined civilization are reflected so powerfully upon him 
that he is elevated, in point of morality, religion, intelligence, use- 
fulness, and pliysical comfort, above a moity of mankind, and in- 
finitely above forty millions of his race in Africa. 

The d inference in these respects is so immeasuraj^le that there 



13 

must be a marked difference in their perceptions, affections, and 
attachments. While, then, the Virginian slave is plying- his fru- 
gal hoe on the banks of the Rappahannock or the Roanoke, let us 
turn to the African coast. The African slave is born in a land of 
heathen idolatry, so gross and accursed that not a single ray of 
Christianity has yet dispersed the darkness of its superstition. 
Reared under the influences of a deplorable barbarity which the 
imagination fails to conceive; inured to the most abject slavery it 
has ever been the lot of man to witness; without a single domes- 
tic association, and esteeming none of the relations of life ; he lives 
without developing a single virtue, while reveling in all the vices 
known to his savage condition ; useless to the world until he is 
tamed and compelled to labor under a superior race in a foreign 
land. Such is their relative condition in the land of their nativity, 
let them be compared at the time they are to change masters. 
What relations in life is it, the severence of which is more '^ irre- 
concilable with the principles of humanity and justice/' in the 
case of the African than in that of the Virginian slave ? 

Is it the marriage tie ? We are told by every traveler that 
marriage is almost unknown to the African slave, and a sense of 
connubial obligation forms no part of his moral code; while so 
well is the relation appreciated and observed by the Virginian slave, 
that his marital vows are frequently sealed under the sanctions 
of the Christian Church. It would seem, then, that if it is "irre- 
concilable with the principles of humanity and justice" to sepa- 
rate the African savage from his score of heathen courtesans, and 
put him to work in the cotton fields of Texas, where he can be 
made useful to himself and to mankind by assisting to "replenish 
the earth;" it must be more irreconcilable with those principles 
to separate the civilized Virginian slave from the wife with whom 
he is united in the bond of Christian wedlock. 

But if it is not the rupture of this tie alone which starts the tear 
of philanthropy over the "horrors" of the African trade, and sum- 
mons from the wild recesses of every Ethiopean jungle the raw 
head and bloody bones of "monsters," "buccaneers," and 
" pirates," to affright the astonished world, it may be the sepa- 
ration of parent from child, or brother from brother.' Yet nothing 
is more common in some parts of Africa than the parent selling his 
own child, and the brother betraying his own blood. If, then, it is 
irreconcilable with these principles to buy an African bondman 
away from his parent, who like the other " heathens round about" 
is ready to trade with the first comer, it must be more irrecon- 
cilable with them to separate the son of a Virginian slave from pa- 
rents whose chief pleasure it is to call him their owm, and whose 
greatest sorrovv is over the fate that takes him away. 

Or is it the love of friends, of home, and of country, which, 
being blasted by this trade, attunes the voice of philanthropy to the 
notes of horror, execration and bloodthirst .^ Grant the African as 
full a measure of these good qualities as the craziest Abolitionist 
may claim for him, has not the American slave as much ? What- 



14 

ever may be the longing of the one for the places and companions 
of his early barbarism, or for the altars of his fetische, is there no 
lingering sigh to be heaved by the Virginian slave, over the old 
homestead — aye, even over the grassy turf that covers his kind old 
master's manes, far away in the Old Dominion ? Has he no tear 
to dedicate to the soil of his birth, when memory transports him to 
his early associations? If, then, it is irreconcilable with these 
principles to transfer the African savage from his heathen home, 
and place him in a sphere of usefulness in a Christian land, it must 
be more irreconcilable with them to remove, to the wild regions of 
Texas, the civilized and thrifty Virginian slave from his pleasant 
home in the fruitful and healthy valley of the Rappahannock. 

This comparison, it may be said, cannot fairly be drawn, for the 
reason that the American trade is in active existence, while the 
African is not; and that there is no parallel between opening a 
traffic and continuing one already established. There may be a 
difference, but, if any, it consists merely in the fact of beginning 
and the fact of continuing. There can be no moral difference. If 
it is wrong to begin, it is wrong to continue. If it is wrong to buy 
one slave, it is wrong to buy another. The same law which may 
be claimed to make one sin, must make the other sin. There can- 
not be one code to suit this time and place, and one to suit that; 
nor one for this occasion, and another for that. Nor should the 
trying vicissitudes of human existence, to which allusion has been 
made, be allowed to disturb our equanimity. They are not pe- 
culiar to the slave! "Thus, O Cr(esus, is man completely the 
sport of vicissitude !" was the admonition which Solon found it 
necessary to address to his royal auditor. And modern poets have 
sung the tribulations and laments of the European emigrant — 

" Impell'd, with steps unceasing, to pursue 
Some fleeting good, that mocks iiim with the view." 
* * * * -* -* * 

*' What sorrows gloomed that parting day, 

That called him from his native walks away ?" 

But it is unnecessary to dwell any further upon this point. 
There cannot be many Southern men of intelligence who seriously 
oppose the importation of African slaves upon moral grounds, or 
indeed upon any others than those of expediency; before proceed- 
ing to the coiisi(!oration of which, however, something is to be said 
about our "responsibility" for the existence of African slavery in 
our midst ; a point of no little importance, upon which our mem- 
ory should be refreshed, but which must be the subject of another 
letter. Are we responsible for the existence, perpetuation, pros- 
perity and extension of African slavery in America ? We are. 



15 



No. 4. 

" The existence of slavery is an eco- " In the tropics no European can ven- 

nomical question, and, so long as the ture to cultivate the soil. To him it 

system is profitable, we cannot doubt yields but deadly emanations, while its 

that it will be maintained." — London richest products repay the labor of the 

Times. African." — Taris Constitutio7inel. 

It is a Startling truth, that the general hostility to Southern civ- 
ilization has been unwittingly encouraged by the inconsistencies 
and inconsiderateness of our course with respect to the slave trade. 
In our legislation we have vainly attempted to discriminafe be- 
tween this trade and slavery itself, out of which it springs. A 
fatal error! 

Abolitionists, on the contrary, plainly seeing their indivisibility, 
have always coupled thera together. The two are indissoluble in 
point of defensibility. Never did men speak with more sincerity 
and truth than Pitt, Fox, Wilberforce, and Burke, when they 
said, respectively: "You must, in the very first instance, stop 
your importations, if you hope to introduce any rational or prac- 
ticable plan, either for gradual emancipation or present general 
improvement.^' — " If the plantations could not be cultivated with- 
out it, (the slave trade,) upon the principles of humanity and 
justice, they ought not to be carried on at all. Better be without 
the islands, than not abolish the slave trade." — ^' 1 will gradually 
produce the abolition of slavery , by immediately abolishing the slave 
trade ; and 1 ivill never cease from prosecuting my plan till the object 
shall be accomplished^ — ''I never was able to consider the African 
trade upon a ground disconnected with the employment of negroes 
in the West Indies, and distinct from their condition in the planta- 
tions whereon they serve. I conceive that the true origin of the 
trade was not in the place it was begun at, but at the place of its 
final destination.' ' 

Mr. Jefferson also, in his " Notes," says of the prohibition of the 
importation of slaves : " This will, in some measure, stop the increase 
of this great political and moral evil, (slavery,) while the minds of 
our citizens may be ripeningfor a complete emancipation of human 
nature." From these, and ten thousand similar declarations on 
the part of others, we have the whole origin of the war against 
the trade in a nut shell. It can be told in two words : prospective 
emancipation. As Clarkson contended, ^ Ho prohibit the slave trade 
would be to lay the axe at the very root of slavery itself." The 
sequel of British history proved him a true prophet. 

But there is more than a simple trueism in Burke's observa- 
tion ; there is philosophy. It was the result of reflection, when 
he said |^ the true origin of the trade was at the place of its final 
destination;" the place where the slaves were imported. The 
real origin of the trade with this country was unquestionably the 
willingness of the colonists to purchase, and the profits derived 
from the labor of the slave. It is vain to cite the ^' petition of the 



16 

Burgesses," and the other evidences usually adduced to disprove 
this. It is a historical fact that, in spite of subsequent legisla- 
tion, almost every colony fostered the trade in its early days. 
Maryland passed an act to encourage it at an early period. * Vir- 
ginia, at the time Beverly wrote, derived a revenue of twenty 
shillings /;e?' capita from the importation of slaves, which proved 
sufficient to defray ''the charge of building and adorning the 
Capitol and erecting the public prison." The Carolinas pur- 
chased freely; and South Carolina, as late as 1803, literally re- 
opened the slave trade, and kept it open until it was closed by act 
of Congress, in 1808. But there is a chapter in the history of 
Georgia which paints our ''responsibility" for slavery and the 
slave trade in this country in bold relief. The following is a brief 
summary of the facts, as given by McCall : 

It was required of the original settlers of Georgia " that they 
should not, at any time, hire, keep, lodge, board or employ any 
negro within the colony, on any conditions whatsoever, without 
special leave from the trustees." This was in 1732. At the end 
of six years the trustees had sent over 1,520 indigent British em- 
igrants, at a cost of £112,000 sterling, being an average of about 
£74 each. At, that time a negro cost £30. Under such a disad- 
vantage in the price of labor, as compared with the rest of the 
world, the people of Savannah, on the 9th of December, 1738, pe- 
titioned the trustees for an introduction of negroes into the colony. 
But, true to their design of planting a white and a free colony, the 
trustees rejected the petition. The consequence is thus recorded: 
•' The tracts of land which had been planted with vines and mul- 
berry trees, scarcely retained the vestiges of cultivation. * * 
Ao-riculture had not flourished, and commerce had scarcely been 
thought of." The result was that negroes were imported in spite 
of the trustees. 

In 1747, " slavery had not yet been formally introduced, and 
may be said to have been licensed rather than authorized. The 
term for which the European servants were engaged, had gener- 
ally expired, and there were no means of remedying this diffi- 
culty, except by hiring negroes from their owners in South Caro- 
lina; in which case, if any person attempted to enforce the regula- 
tion of the trustees, the owner appeared from Carolina and claimed 
his property. Finding that this plan of evading the law suc- 
ceeded, negroes were hired for a hundred years, or during life, and 
a sum equal to the value of the negro was paid in advance. Fi- 
nally, purchases were openly made in Savannah from African 
traders. Some seizures were made by those who opposed the 
principle; but as a majority of the magistrates were favorable to 
the introduction of slaves, legal decisions were suspended from 
time to time, and a strong disposition evinced by the courts to 
evade the operation of the law. So great was the majority on 
that side of the question, that anarchy and confusion were likely 
to be kindled into civil war," 

George Whitfield, the reverend and distinguished founder of 



17 

the public orphan house of the colony, was one of those who fa- 
vored the importation of slaves ; and Mr. Habersham, the president 
of the institution, declared plainly that '' it could not be supported 
without them." The former, writing to a friend, said: " He had 
been taught by the exercise of his reflections to believe that God 
had some wise end in view in the permission of every occurrence, 
and though he could not fathom the purpose connected with the 
slavery of Africans, he had no doubt it would terminate to their 
advantage. When he took into view the wretched, miserable, 
starved condition of the negroes in their own country; that for the 
purpose of gaining a scant, temporary subsistence, the father had 
sold his sons, his daughters, nay his wife, to a barbarous, cruel 
foe — how much better must their condition be, when disposed of 
TrTa Christian country, where they are treated with mildness and 
humanity, and required to perform no more than that portion of 
labor, which, in some way or other, is the common lot of the 
human race." 

The trustees were at length prevailed upon to convoke an as- 
semblage of delegates from each district, deliberately to decide 
whether slavery and the slave trade should be legalized or not. The 
meeting was held in Savannah, and slavery agreed upon. Thus, 
says McCall, were passed " the measures which the people had 
been so long anxious to adopt." 

This wise and timely importation or slaves and legalization of 
slavery, occasioned a general revival of the drooping affairs of the 
colony. The abandoned fields were restored to culture. Agricul- 
ture and commerce began to flourish. Such was the impetus 
given to all departments of industry, that the exports of the col- 
ony, which in 1750 amounted to less than $9,000, in six years 
after reached the sum of $75,000. In forty years the negro popu- 
lation increased to 30,000. It is now approaching half a million, 
which, according, to prevailing prices, is $800,000,000 worth of 
piratical plunder. 

Here, then, fellow-Southerners, are the grounds of our responsi- 
bility for the existence of slavery. And now that a death-struggle 
is brewing, shall we seek to shirk it ? No tongue among us will 
utter aye. Very shame, in the absence of honest conviction and 
intelligent comprehension, must seal every lip. It matters not 
who brought the slaves here; our fathers voluntarily, freely, eagerly 
bought them. British and Yankee vessels always have done our 
carrying trade; and it is just as reasonable to charge Old and 
New England with the responsibility of the tea, coffee, liquor, 
cotton, dry-goods, hardware, and other traffics, because their ves- 
sels and sailors are the carriers, as to shuffle off upon them the 
fancied enormous responsibility of bringing slaves to our ports, 
slaves whom we wer,e so willing to buy, and from whose labor we 
have amassed so much wealth. 

Whatever may have been the participation of Northern and 
British ship-owners in conducting the traffic, we, as a people, 
are clearly responsible, to whatever tribunal, for every slave that 
2 



18 

was ever imported into the country. Even since the independence 
of the United States, it is known that more than 100,000 slaves have 
been legally imported. The (so called) responsibility is with us, 
and we do not seek to throw it upon others. There is nothing to 
be ashamed of, but much to be grateful for; and, as the tide of 
Abolition swells abroad and around us, why should we not rise 
superior to its menaces, and repel its encroachments through a 
profound sense of the social, political, economical, and moral in- 
tegrity of our institution with all its past and present adjuncts? 



No 5. 



" Never was the prospect of emanci- "In any case, we cannot see why the 

pation more distant than now, that for- uUra Aboh'tionists should impose their 

eign slave-owners are establishing a particular views upon us. Is not Africa 

monopoly of all the great staples of trop- an independent country? Is it confided 

ical produce. The islands which, in old to the tutelage of Bible societies? And 

times, supplied so much sugar, cofiee, France ; cannot she act according to the 

and cotton, are going out of cultivation, dictates of her own conscience? There 

while Cuba, the United States and Bra- exists, in this respect, no international 

zil, are every day extending the area of engagement that can limit her action." — 

their cultivation and the number of their Paris Coiistitutionnel. 
slaves." — London Times. 

Passing over other considerations, let us now inquire into the 
expediency of importing slaves from Africa. And, to commence, 
who will oppose it most effectually ? 

It is undeniable that the produce of slave labor in the Southern 
States, Cuba and Brazil, is a recognized necessity to mankind. 
If the curious statistician would sum up, in dollars and cents, the 
value of all the cotton, rice, tobacco, sugar, coffee, and other produce 
exported from these countries for the consumption of the rest of 
the world, and then add the wages of all those millions who are 
employed in the transportation, manufacture, sale, and consump- 
tion of these crops, and foot the column by the nett profits accruing 
to all the parties, the figures would startle him. Now, who of all 
these people and nations of the earth intend to be the most obsti- 
nate in opposing the importation of that labor which is so essential 
to their prosperity? It is the habit with some to regard the Brit- 
ish Government as the divinely appointed guardian ot Africa; but 
Encrland will not be the most earnest opponent we shall have to 
encounter. For the present, it is sufficient to recall the vast in- 
terest she /;not/.'5 she has in our slavery. 

It is estimated that a capital of at least $500,000,000, and a 
population of over 5,000,000 in Great Britain, are immediately 
dependent upon our cotton for profit, wages and support. More 



19 

than seventy-five per cent, of the cotton worked up in the British 
mills comes from our plantations. To this must be added an end- 
less string of items, all affording employment and profit to the 
people of the British Empire. If then it should appear that the 
increase in slave labor here must add to the prosperity of hireling 
labor there; and, on the contrary, that a determined opposition, 
on the part of the British Government, to such increase of labor, 
must permanently injure the interests represented at Liverpool 
and Manchester, can it be supposed that Downing Street will 
continue to be quietly indulged in the old crisp and shriveled 
fantasies of " the Broughams and Wilberforces ? '' 

Impossible! The commercial spirit and thrifty ventures of the 
present age are leaving far behind them the canting hypocrisy of 
the past. While we, at our firesides, are changing our moral 
views in relation to the civilization which God has given us to 
develop, our old enemies, in their mills and counting-rooms across 
the water, are drifting along the same current, albeit the chart 
which guides them is interest, and their polar star is profit. 
Price is a most potent agent. There are hopes of its yet assuag- 
ing the griefs of philanthropy, on the principle of a counter irri- 
tant, removing distress and care from empty-headed zealots to 
empty-pocketed masses of people crying for bread. 

JHeretofore, the only crises which have disturbed the cotton 
interest of England have grown out of money pressures, or 
"strikes " for an increase of wages. But awfully different would 
be the case if the ''strike" should be for loio wages rather than 
none! which could be occasioned only by a permanent deficiency 
in the supply of raw cotton. The " strike" would be a terrific one 
iox existence. Those of us whose attention may have been called 
to the matter, will remember the deplorable accounts of the " Lan- 
cashire strikes," a few years since. The town of Preston, for ex- 
ample, was described as having the appearance of a besieged city. 
The workmen had been so long out of work, and the supplies from 
the ''Trades Union" had become so scanty, that the population, 
with sunken cheeks and lank sides, looked more like sufferers 
from a protracted siege, than free citizens in an open town of 
England. 

In a few months the funds of the "Trades Union" and the 
"Benefit Societies" were exhausted, and it was found that the 
only effect produced was a loss of over a half million of pounds 
sterling to the cotton interest ; and, as a fit conclusion to the affair, 
delegations of workmen from every part of the kingdom were in- 
vited to London to deliberate in what was significantly called "a 
labor Parliament." Now, such " strikes " as these can always be 
effectually put down, because they seek to violate the laws of 
economy and of nature. They are contests between capital and 
labor, in which the former is sure to triumph. Labor must eat its 
daily bread; capital can hold a long fast. But, whenever a defi- 
ciency of slaves to cultivate our cotton occasions a large and per- 
manent deficiency in the Liverpool market, and there is no forth- 



20 

coming supply from our sources, the present cry for "another 
America" proving vain, the "strike" will no longer be that of 
the workmen against their employers; the struggle will cease to 
be that of labor against capital. It will have required no pres- 
cience to satisfy all interested that the scarcity and high price of 
cotton there is due to the scarcity of slaves to cultivate it here, which 
is the consequence of the prohibition of the slave-trade. 

A further opposition to the trade would be unprofitable, and 
the policy of Downing Street would have to conform to the press- 
ing demands of Liverpool and Manchester. A continued defi- 
ciency of cotton would change "short time into no time," mills 
would be closed, and the result would be a " labor Parliament" 
on the one hand, and a " spinner's Parliament " on the other. Cot- 
ton would be demanded by both, at any hazard, even if it cost the 
sacrifice of the abolition influence, and a Cotton Parliament would 
be witnessed in England equal in its results to any of her " mad 
Parliaments," her " long Parliaments," or her "Rump Parlia- 
ments." The London Times is eminently correct in saying that 
"the w^orld is wiser than it was when Abolitionists ruled it." 
Commerce now rules, /disking; cotton is heir-apparent, and 
slavery is queen-dowager. Whatever, then, may be the present 
views of Great Britain in relation to our importation of slaves, we 
can all endorse the sentiment of the " Constitutionnel" — " the 
rest of the world is not obliged to adopt them as its rule of con- 
duct." 

But if the British Government were empowered and disposed to 
offer opposition, it will be the subject of another letter, in relation 
to our treaty obligations, to show with what ease we could strip her 
alike of the pretext and the power. 

The only other quarter, outside of our own limits, from which 
opposition would arise, would be the hireling States. There it 
^vould, in the first instance, at least, be hot and furious. The pol- 
iticians, both lay and clerical, could desire no richer theme. 
Every street "loafer" would become a Clarkson, every Congress- 
man would be a Wilberforce, every itinerant preacher would be 
another Wesley, and even the printers' devil would spring up into 
Franklins. But, surely, these changes need not appal us. Nor 
would they, in fact, be changes. The eminent characters exist 
already. 

Is there, indeed, any further progress for the Abolition senti- 
ment to make in the hireling States? What is it that the South 
needs which the North does not oppose ? If Abolitionists glory 
in stealing the negroes we already have, it will only be a different 
glory for them to "howl" over ourgetting any more, and " shriek" 
for Africa. Now, have we not been yoked with these people long 
enough to know them ? The scales are gradually balancing be- 
tween us. The long account must some day be settled; and are 
we to make false entries, by omitting every item that they will ob- 
ject to ? If so, we may as well omit slavery itself, and abandon 
the contest at once. No; it does not become us to hesitate in 



21 

seeking what we want, even if it be negroes from Africa. They 
seek what they want with unflinching pertinacity. Nothing is at- 
tainable till the attempt is made. And if the South is to wait in 
silence until the North chooses to dissolve the Union, as some ad- 
vise, she had better prepare for a tedious vigil of ages. 

But, after all, is the project of importing African slaves so 
Cluixotic as some suppose ? Weigh the motives and the obstacles, 
the evils and the benefits. When the Gluakers first petitioned, and 
Clarkson first organized his committee, there were a thousand 
times more difficulties in their way, in spite of their having re- 
ligious fanaticism for a stipendiary. As the London Times truly 
says, *' they were content to be merely destructives;" they were 
doubtless looked upon as Gluixotic, yet their success was complete. 
Why, then, should the South not boldly enter upon the policy, 
which so many of her people have at heart, which is so mani- 
festly to her interest, and which the interests of other countries 
conspire lo promote? Such a Quixote never lived. 

Conceding, then, that a very warm opposition to any further 
importation of slaves must be expected, as a matter of course, 
from Northern politicians, lay and clerical, it remains to in- 
quire whether any insurmountable obstacle exists among our- 
selves. 



No. 6. 



"Now, to these countries we have "Parliament already resounds with 

given a monopoly of products which are the declaration of grievances, the most 

the chief basis of our industry, or among grievous of which is, that they cannot 

the chief sources of our revenue. They have laborers from Africa except they 

are becoming rich, powerful, arrogant, purchase them again. It is a natural 

every day less inclined to be guided by result of the social state of that country. 

English councils, or moved by English Slavery is the general condition of its 

interference." — London Times. working population." — Paris Constitii- 

tionnel. 

The question with which my last letter was concluded, whether, 
among ourselves, there is any insurmountable obstacle to the im- 
portation of African slaves, opens the broad proposition as to the 
expediency of such a measure. 

It admits of no dispute, that every new country, such as ours, 
must receive from abroad a considerable portion of its labor. The 
experience of all America shows it, while the general clamor for 
Asiatic and African emigrants, in the British and French colonies, 
dove-tails exactly with Caban, Brazilian, and American demands 
for slaves. And any disturbing cause which will cut ofT this sup- 
ply of labor, before the natural demand for it ceases, must prove 



22 

detrimental. It is true, a partial monopoly in the production o 
such staples as cotton, rice, coffee, sugar, and tobacco, may for a 
time seem to obviate tlie evil, but it can neither postpone nor pre- 
vent the check imposed upon the growth and prosperity of the 
country. This is precisely the position in which the South has 
been placed by the interdiction of the African slave-trade. We 
systematically exclude the only labor we need to import, to rival 
the leading nations of the earth, in all respects essential to pros- 
perity and power. Let us illustrate the error. 

Suppose there be, in a new country, two adjacent bodies of land 
of 1,000 acres each, equal in quality and productive capacity, each 
having 200 acres under cultivation and 800 in wood, and each with 
twenty slaves. Say their crops amount to the same for a given 
year; and suppose that one estate is held under the condition that 
not another slave shall ever be purchased to labor on it, and that 
no other labor is ever to be used in clearing and cultivating the 
remaining 800 acres but that derived from the natural increase of 
the slaves already on it; while the other, having no such condition, 
is at liberty to receive as much additional labor as the proceeds 
of each succeeding crop will purchase, for the cultivation of the re- 
maining eight hundred acres. 

Now, if these two estates were offered for sale, what practical 
planter would pay as much for the one as the other? Not one ; 
and why ? Because the condition imposed on one makes an incal- 
culable difference in their future value. At the end of a term of 
years, the one which can purchase labor will have appreciated in 
value, and doubled its number of slaves, its cultivated area, and its 
income, which latter can either be invested in a further purchase 
of labor and of land, or else in stocks, railroads, commerce, or man- 
ufactures; while the other, with the restriction on its labor., will, 
under the most favorable circumstances, have but a trifling in- 
crease in its labor, cultivation, and income. And, in the mean- 
time, this superabundance of land will be certain to induce an 
exhausljnor system of culture, calculated to impair the productive 
capacity of the soil, and so depreciate its value. Such is the con- 
trast which, under the existinii prohibition of the slave trade, 
would subsist between the south and any other portion of the globe, 
having a free ingress of labor and equal resources, if such there 
were. 

It is not contended that our section of the Union has not been, 
and is not now, in a prosperous condition; fortune has taken bet- 
ter care of us, perhaps, than we have been disposed to take of 
ourselves, and it certainly is surprising with what strides we have 
advanced; but this goes to show how much greater would have 
been our progress if this restriction upon our labor had never been 
imposed. How many among us will sign a deed binding our heirs 
never to buy another negro to work on our estates? Yet is not 
this exactly what the act of 1807 has done for the South at large? 
The Southern States make up together one vast, united and indis- 
soluble planting interest. Our general wealth and prosperity are 



23 

simply the aggregate wealth and prosperity of the individuals of 
our community, and if there is not one among us who will bind 
himself never to buy another slave, with what propriety, upon 
what principle of economy, or even self-respect, is it that all of us 
live under laws which bind us, in our aggregate capacity, to pre- 
cisely the same condition ? 

What prosperous slaveholder, who annually goes to the vendue 
table in America, to import slaves to his plantation, can reconcile 
it with his conscience to prevent his neighbor from doing the same 
thing at a lower price in Africa? Can he possibly dream of mo- 
nopolizing slave propert}'-, and setting up in this age and country a 
slave aristocracy ? Hardly. But, it may be said, we can buy from 
one another. Will such a traffic add anything to the productive 
power of the country ? It has long existed among us, and what has 
it accomplished but the withdrawal of slaves from one point tocon- 
centrate them at another. He who buys in this market may cul- 
tivate more land and add to the produce of his plantation, but he 
who sells must cultivate less! Nothing is added to the produce 
of the country. The rate of increase of cultivation must be still 
limited to the rate of the natural increase of our slave population! 
Though a million of slaves be bought and sold during the year^ 
no addition can thereby accrue to our productive industry. 

In the debate on the old Articles of Confederation, John Adams 
expressed this principle so clearly that I cannot but reproduce it. 
He said, in substance : '' It is of no consequence by what name 
you call your people, whether by that of freemen or of slaves — 
the difference, as to the state, is imaginary only. What matters 
it whether a landlord, employing ten laborers on his farm, gives 
them annually as much money as will buy the necessaries of life, 
or gives them those necessaries at short hand ? The ten laborers 
add as much wealth annually to the State, and increase its exports, 
in one case as in the other. =k * * How does the Southern 
farmer procure slaves. Either by importation or purchase at 
home, if he imports a slave, he adds one to the Jiumber of laborers 
in the country; if he bmjs from his neighbor, it is only a transfer of 
labor from one far 7n to another, which does not change the production 
of the State. A slave may, from the custom of speech, be more 
properly called the wealth of his master than the free laborer can 
be called the wealth of his employer; but as to the State, both are 
its wealth. 

But the demand for slaves must be controlled by the demand 
for their produce : hence one consideration is, whether the demand 
for the produce is such as to occasion a demand for Africans. This 
is a commercial question. Every well-informed man is prepared 
to answer it. Another America is what England clamors for; and 
the only way to get what is needed is to bring Africa across the 
water. Asia is out of the question, and so is Europe. Something 
can be made of Australia, with compulsory labor, but Africa 
breathes death, instead of life, into the white man's nostrils. One 
America is quite enough for the world, provided it is cutlivatedj 



24 

and its cultivatien is to be effected only by the approved method 
of importing African slaves. Columbus is surpassed by no bene- 
factor of the human race. His discovery united the ends of the 
earth. Is it not so? 

When the Almighty architect dispersed chaos, and divided the 
waters of earth by continents destined for the habitation of man, 
it is manifest his infinite wisdom was not addressed to the mere 
distribution of seasons, climate, soil, production, and temperature. 
The hand which congealed the ice and stamped the polar regions 
with the seal of mystery, was lavish in dispensing heat to the 
tropics to melt the blue waters of the sea. If the snows of winter 
attest a fixed design, the summer cloud gives voice to another edict 
of the impurturbable Creator. If the pale moon, shedding her 
pensive light over a sleeping world, evinces the presence of a 
mysterious but benign Divinity, the black raging storm of mid- 
night is but the breath of an awful God. Even while the land is 
made to rejoice in its tranquil verdure, the sea is gladdened, and 
will dance in cadence with the roaring winds. Grand but anom- 
alous are these eternal elements. Yet they harmonize for a single 
purpose, and promote the welfare of man. If all nature serves a 
purpose, is man alone exempt from such service? Abolitionists 
presume to this exemption, but nature contradicts it. The earth 
is to be replenished. 

It may be that mystery enwraps the design of God in distribut- 
ing mankind over the several continents of the earth; but it is 
clear that there is some great object, some co-ordinate design, in 
the geographical division of the earth, inseparable from the division 
of mankind into races. The world, we know, was made for man; 
but were the different continents made for the different races? In 
an improved condition, man is migratory. There is hardly a por- 
tion of the civilized world which has not been invaded and wrested 
from its aboriginal race. The whole North American continent 
has but recently been appropriated to a superior and a ruling race, 
while the aborigines are rapidly disappearing. It is not, then, the 
design of the Creator, in isolating the continents, to restrict the 
races of men to their original localities forever. The fiat for all 
time is, that man, while he shall eat bread only in the sweat of 
his brow, shall nevertheless go forth and ^'replenish the earth." 
And how has this mighty work, thus far, been accomplished? 

Nation has fallen before nation ; empire after empire has crum- 
bled to decay : one race of men has made place for another; and 
yet every corner of the earth is peopled. The depths of the sea 
and the heights of space have been explored and measured. The 
ways and habits of the very winds are known and converted to our 
use. The great cities of antiquity have perished, and are lost. 
Ninevah is but a study for the antiquary; and mighty Babylon, 
'' which sat a Clueen," and "was decked with gold," is fallen; 
"it is thrown down and shall be found no more at all." Jerusa- 
lem, the pride of a chosen people, has been "compassed with 
armies," and " all her pleasant things are laid waste ;" the vale 



25 

of her Temple has been rent ', the wonted incense of her altars no 
longer mounts up, and she '' is a desolation." Rome too is ended. 
Her power is departed, and her glor}^ is no more forever. Wars 
have consumed the nations. The great rivers of earth have been 
stained with the blood of generations. And massacre, conflagration, _ 
and famine have added untold horror to the ravages of time. But, 
in spite of all, the decree is enforced, the earth is replenished. All 
creation has prospered, and rejoiced, saving only Africa! She is 
still an impenetrable gloom, a land of mystery, pestilence, and 
death. 

With but two exceptions, she affords nothing to history. When 
Hermes departed from the '' rivers of Babylon ''and planted his 
colony in Ethiopia, it is said he laid the foundations of that won- 
derful civilization which characterized Egypt. But this was not 
destined to extend through Africa. Egypt was raised to power 
that it might become the land of bondage ; and when the chosen 
people of God were delivered from their captivity, ''the sea saw it 
and fled," but, in its rushing recoil, engulphed both Pharoah and 
his host. The Ptolemies advanced her to the summit of her 
greatness, only that erring Cleopatra might sacrifice her to 
Rome. And so, when Dido landed on the African coast and built 
up Carthage, a foreign civilization was a second time planted on 
that fated continent. But as the Babylonish arts could extend no 
further than Eofypt, so were the Phoenician limited to Carthage. 
These types of ancient civilization left no offspring in Africa. 
The one grafted a few elements of its grandeur upon a Grecian or 
Jewish offshoot, while the other took refuge to the Spanish coast. 
And thus the civilizations which have in vain been nurtured on 
this forbidden soil, have successively recoiled from the contact 
which nature declares to be repulsive and fruitless. 

When Egyptian splendor was at its meridian, Europe was 
wrapt in darkness and obscurity. A few sparks were caught up 
on her southern border, and at length a portion of mankind were 
awakened to the scintillations of a new philosophy. While the 
Asiatic schools were lapsing into their prolonged stagnation, 
Greek civilization sprang up, the embodiment of human intelli- 
gence, skill, and refinement. And in good time the city which 
sat upon seven hills personified human power. Solon, Socrates, 
and Plato, are names imperishable while Grecian lore is read; 
and Rome must ever be a household word. These two fountains 
of European civilization have, in turn, overflowed the surrounding 
nations. In the East the royal hero of Macedon wept over the 
fate which deprived him of another world to conquer, while in the 
West the great founder of the Roman empire could not be satiated 
until he had planted his eagles on the confines of Caledonia. 

Africa is just as old as Asia and Europe; but how does it com- 
pare with them? It is still the cannibal's home. Withdrawn by 
the inviolable laws of nature from the prying scrutinies of science, 
it seems doubly excluded from the prospect of enlightenment. 
The labors of a continued mission are squandered in vain. Neither 



26 

the arts of peace nor the stratagems of war can make a lasting 
impression. Commerce is restricted to the coast ; art hovers over 
but a few sahent points; and the sword sickens from miasma. 
Here, then, is a country whose very atmosphere is a death-war- 
rant to every race but negroes. Here, also, is a race of men whose 
labor, and whose alone, can " replenish'^ the bulk of the Ameri- 
can continent. These men are slaves. They are for sale. What 
shall prevent us from buying them if we want them? In fact, 
there cannot be ^'another Jimerica." When "God saw every- 
thing that he had made," that "it was very good," and "the 
heavens and the earth were finished," He seems to have been con- 
tent with but one Africa and one America. The wisdom of British 
philanthropy has alone discovered the necessity for another. 



No. 7. 



"So valuable is the slave in Cuba "The philanthropists have made some 

that, in spite of treaties and penal laws, stupid blunders, which should force 

cruisers and blockades, thousands of them into private life, or at least teach 

Africans are yearly carried across the them to speak with becoming modesty 

Atlantic to work on the sugar and to- in future. In this situation of things, 

bacco plantations. The wealth of the when it has been proved that the sys- 

island is such that, in spite of misgov- tern has utterly failed, is it astonishing 

ernment, oppressive taxes and a Span- that we should try another? This would 

ish army of 25,000 men, its proprietors at least give new activity to colonial 

are among the richest in the world." — productions." — Paris CoiistiUitionnel. 
London Times. 

So general is the impression that the American slave market 
would be immediately glutted if the African slave-trade were re- 
opened, it can scarcely be a work of supererogation to dwell fur- 
ther upon it. Who would think of importing a cargo of African 
slaves, unless he was well assured of a market? Who would 
carry a slave from Richmond to sell in New Orleans, unless he 
knew there was capital in the latter city seeking investment in 
slaves and willing to pay a price which will afford him a profit? 
Does not the same principle apply ? Are not the parties equally 
in search of a market ? And can a market exist unless there is 
capital awaiting investment ? Is there any more likelihood of a 
man's importing a hundred negroes without a good market, than of 
his importing, to the same cost, any other properly with the same 
p,^;^spect ? We may rest assured that, even if all restrictions were 
r/-''i>ved, no negro will ever be imported until buyers are waiting 
to 'purchase. 

The truth is, all traffic is controlled by the same law — the law 
of profit. Trade is bargain, and there must be at least two parties 



27 

to a bargain. Yet it has been seriously asked whether one hun- 
dred thousand slaves might not be imported into a single State in 
one year, ^ the first season. '') What an idea ! Why at the low 
price of 8200 each, such a number would require an investment of 
^20,000,000! The whole South has not that much spare capital 
for investment in slaves " the first season." But apply the suppo- 
sition to the South generally. "Suppose the importation of the 
first season to reach one hundred thousand" in each of the South- 
ern States, " and the traders to demand the highest market 
price" — what amount of capital would be invested that "season?" 
Fourteen States, at 820,000,000 each, would make up the sum of 
$280,000,000 for 1,400,000 negroes. This would require a fleet of 
one thousand vessels of six hundred tons, and twenty thousand 
seamen, each vessel making two voyages for the season." But 
even this does not come up to the extravagant estimate which has 
been put upon " the number of Africans which it will be necessary 
to import for the attainment of any given end." It is apprehended 
that "the depressing effect of such importation would be much 
greater than is expressed by a simple arithmetical ratio." After 
the most astute arithmetic investigation, the mighty calculus has 
been invoked as the most " suitable instrument of investigation," 
and the problem is solved either by leaving everything to time, or 
else importing ten millions of African barbarians, whose very dis- 
eases shock our refined sensibilities ! This stupendous importation 
would give employment to the above mentioned commercial ma- 
rine for eight years, and drain Africa of a fourth of her slaves ! 
The idea is too grand ever to be realized. Apply it to the test of 
actual experience. 

What is the largest amount of slaves ever known to have been 
exported from Africa in a given year? Does it approach 100,000, 
still less 1,400,000? In one hundred years, ending with 1807, so 
far as can be ascertained, there were not 400,000 slaves imported 
into this country, which is less than 4,000 per annum. Thelarcrest 
average for any four years is less than ten thousand. And the 
largest number in a single year is less than 17,000. According to 
Abolition authority, (for which, of course, great allowances must be 
made, say at least 50 per cent,) the whole number of slaves ever 
imported into the British West Indies was 1,700,000; and the 
slave-trade between Africa and all countries has never but once 
reached 85,000 in a year. 

It is quite true that if the slave-trade were legalized, or if even 
a successful system of smuggling were established, which would 
require no uncommon ingenuity, probably more slaves would be 
imported than ever before. In fifty years our country has grown, 
and our population and wealth increased. Of course, then, there 
is more capital in the country seeking investment in slave labor 
than there was a half century ago. When but little cotton as 
raised, our fathers were all tainted with Abolition scruple id 
had a weak stomach at the thought of a native African. But the 



28 

law? of trade and the nature of man, both white and black, have 
not changed in that time. 

We can put ^- Quashee " to work with even less compunction 
than our fathers did, for the proceeds have had a decidedly tonic 
effect; and "GIuashee " himself will work with a better will now 
than formerly. He will find better examples set him, and bacon 
and homespuns are more abundant. In a single word, it still re- 
quires money to buy slaves; they will not be imported when the 
money gives out ; the slave-market is not more liable to be glutted 
than any other; and slave labor is not likely ever to be "an incu- 
bus upon the country." 

One limit, then, to the importation of slaves, being the amount 
of capital in the country seeking investment in such property, 
there are three others to which a brief reference will be made : 
the consumption of slave produce, the number obtainable in 
Africa, and the number exported from Virginia, North Carolina, 
and the other older Southern States. 

If the consumer does not buy produce, the planter cannot sell it. 
If the planter cannot sell his produce, he can have no money to 
buy slaves. If there is no money -to buy slaves, none will be im- 
ported. Was it ever feared that too many ploughs would be made, 
or that too many horses would be raised, or too many steam- 
engines built? Did the most rigid economist ever dread the 
importation of too much clothing, too much food, or the means of 
obtaining them, too much labor? That the demand of capital for 
additional labor must be governed by the consumptive demands 
for the produce of that labor is too evident to be doubted. And, in 
this point of view, it is plain that the demand for African slaves 
in the Southern States, or anywhere else, must be limited by the 
demand for the produce of their labor in Liverpool, Havre, and 
other markets. 

Now, it will hardly be denied that there is a great deficiency of 
labor in the Southern States, as compared with the demand for it, 
growing, as such demand must, out of an accumulation of capital. 
After examining all the evidence it would seem like a wilful lack 
of comprehension to persist in doubting the fact. The fear seems 
to be that if the foreign slave-trade is legalized, there will imme- 
diately be a glut of labor in the land, and the vested interests of 
the South will suffer detriment. This point claims investigation. 
Is such a thing as a sudden superabundance of slave-labor ^;o55e6/e.^ 
The economist must answer. 

Adam Smith says: "The demand for those who live by wages, 
(or, in other words, the demand for labor,) necessarily increases 
with the increase of the revenue and stock of every country, and 
cannot possibly increase without it. The increase of revenue and 
stock is the increase of national wealth. The demand for labor, 
therefore, naturally increases with the national wealth, and cannot 
possibly increase without it." As to a sudden glut of labor, he 
observes, in substance : "At the conclusion of every war more 



29 

than one hundred thousand soldiers and sailors are at once dis- 
charged, and we see no alteration in the wages of labor, nor in 
any other particular, which the sudden influx might be expected 
to effect." This, though not strictly parallel with the case in 
point, serves strikingly to illustrate the almost impossibility of a 
sudden superabundance of labor. 

Thomas Cooper observes: ''The demand must exist for labor 
before laborers can be employed. What is it, then, that occasions 
the want of the demand for labor? Without a previous command 
of capital, how is it possible for a demand for labor to exist? And 
without the labor is in demand, unless it be wanted, who will pay 
for it? Accumulated capital, therefore, gradually increasing, is 
the only source of demand for labor.'' And again: ''Additional 
wealth can be procured only by an addition to the number of la- 
borers, or by an addition to their productive skill. For both these 
purposes additional capital is necessary. There can be no addi- 
tion to the present full complement of laborers till the employment 
of fresh capital creates the demand for them, and the means of 
subsisting them." 

These extracts, and the undivided concurrence of other econo- 
mists, establish the fact that one limit to the increase of slave 
labor by means of importation, must be the amount of capital 
seeking investment in such labor, of which more will be said in 
another letter. 



No. 8. 



" As to the United States it is indeed " To deprive Africa of contact with 
folly to expect any change in that quar- civihzation, under the pretext of pre- 
ter. Slavery on the North American serving peace among her tribes, is to act 
Continent has extended, is extending, like a quack, who, to cure an eruption, 
will extend."---Z.o?i6fo?t Times. kills his patient by the internal concen- 

tration of the disease."— Pari* Coiistitti- 
tionnel. 

The surplus slave population of the older Southern States, if the 
expression be allowed, partially supplying the demand for labor 
in the newer States, and thereby absorbing a certain amount of 
capital, will be another and a very material check to a supera- 
bundant importation from Africa; and the impossibility of obtain- 
ing more than a limited supply, even in Africa, under the circum- 
stances which would follow our revival of the slave-trade, would 
be still another. But whether or not these checks would combine 
to prevent the great influx which is so much dreaded, it must be 
remembered that each State Government could for itself prevent 
importation. 

It is the right of every State to decide what description of men 



30 

shall be allowed to enter her limits. Every act cf the Federal Gov- 
ernment might be repealed, and still few or no slaves imported into 
Virginia or the Carolinas, if those States wished to prevent it. Con- 
gress can only prohibit — it cannot authorize importation in contra- 
vention of the State authorities; and even the power to prohibit is 
susceptible of grave dispute, in the event of a case being made 
before the courts of the country. Regarding, then, African slaves 
ever becoming an ''incubus upon the country" as a simple im- 
possibility, let us for a moment consider what would be the effect 
of importing them. 

It is with profound deference that I venture an opinion which, 
though it be the result of mature reflection, may be erroneous ; 
yet it does seem that, if as many slaves were imported as would 
supply the demands of capital not absorbed in the domestic trade, 
there would be no sudden effect produced upon the vested inter- 
ests of the South. A gradual reduction would probably occur in 
the price of slave labor, but this would be too slow to occasion in- 
convenience to parties now interested in mortgages, bonds, settle- 
ments, or other obligations; and it is only a sudden change of 
price that can effect the material interests of the country. Be- 
sides, the price of land would rise with the same certainty that the 
price of slaves would fall, because labor imparts value to land. 
Since the days of Paradise, what is land without labor? The 
landed interest of the country would surely suffer no detriment. 
An increase of labor, the only active source of value, would in- 
crease our agricultural produce, and consequently, stimilate com- 
merce, navigation, manufactures, and the mechanic arts, and all 
these interests would be benefitted. But in this moneyed age it is 
startling to hear of a reduction in price. Let us see if we should 
regret a reduction in the price of slaves. 

Since the beginning of this year, the account sales of over 2,000 
negroes have come under my observation in a few newspapers 
from different sections of the South, and their average price has 
been $635, making an aggregate investment of ^1,270,000. Now, 
in spite of the late money pressure, how many of these two thousand 
were really mortgaged for the price they sold at, or even ha ff ihe 
price? How many of them cost their former owners what they 
lately sold for? If the truth could be known, it would more than 
probably be found that nine out of ten sold at an enormous appre- 
ciation above cost or liability for debt. The true effect, then, ol 
these high prices, is to add to the assets of the very few who sell, 
either to pay debts or to speculate; while the many, who buy as 
a permanent investment, must realize a proportionately diminished 
projit by having to invest at a higher rate. The slave who costs 
$500 and produces four bags of cotton, is twice as profitable and 
just as valuaWe as the one of the same age who costs $1,000, and 
produces four bags under the same circumstances. Who refuses 
to buy a cheap horse, a cheap plow, or a cheap cotton-gin ? The 
effect of the scarcity of slaves, as compared with the demand for 
them, is to enrich the slave-trader, but certainly not to benefit the 



31 

great mass of slave-owners, who have not the remotest intention 
of selling even the most worthless of their slaves. 

People, in common parlance, are too apt to regard slave prop- 
erty as a sort of stock in trade, but this is as general as it is egre- 
gious an error. Out of the 4,000,000 slaves in our possession, or 
even out of the 200,000 that annually change homes, under the 
impetus of emigration, how many are sold as stock in trade? 
After the most assiduous investigation, which of course can afford 
but imperfect information, I believe not 10,000 ! Now, what com- 
pany, with a capital stock of 84,000,000, or even of $200,000, could 
survive a year on the profits of the sale of only $10,000 of its 
stock? But to come from generalities to particulars, are not the 
richest and most prosperous planters, and slave owners generally, 
those w^ho never sell ? How many hundreds of estates are there 
from which no slave has ever been sold ? Yet, what changes 
take place in the price of those whom their neighbors sell ! But 
do these changes affect their wealth ? Do they reduce their crops 
or the price of their crops? 

It would be well to remember, that the value of labor, m a new 
country like ours, is not governed by the same laws which control 
the price of merchandize. Labor is productive, and lis price may 
vary according to the annaul demand for its produce, but Ms value 
does not. Produce is perishable, and its value as well as price is 
controlled by the quantity in the market. In one case the value is 
that of '< use," in the other it is that of '' exchange." Labor is not 
for sale, the produce is. A few large crops may cheapen produce, 
say 20 per cent. ; but this fact of itself does not cheapen labor, be- 
cause the amount of labor employed is still the same — the capital 
invested and the cost of support is unchanged. And, on the other 
hand, a few short crops may appreciate produce 20 per cent.; but 
it does not follow that labor appreciates in proportion; after all 
the fluctuations in the price of produce, the value of the labor will 
be found to be unchanged. Because a farmer loses a crop, does 
he consider his slaves, his horses, mules and cattle worthless ? 
Crops are annual affairs; but an investment in lands and negroes 
is a lifetime business Besides, produce is made to be sold, and 
what is not sold is the exception; but lands and negroes are 
bought to be kept, and what are sold make the exception. It is 
quite true there is an inseparable connection between the price 
of produce and the price of labor; all I urge is, that their respect- 
ive values do not vary in the same ratio, because the sale of the 
one is the rule, and of the other only the exception. 

Suppose two million slaves produce four million bags of cotton, 
and that the price of slaves for that year is §500, and of the cotton 
^40 per bag. The slaves would be commonly said to be worth 
^1,000,000,000, and the cotton $160,000,000. Now if this is a 
true saying, the $1,000,000,000 ought to be forthcoming in case 
the two'million slaves are offered for sale, with the same certainty 
that the $160,000,000 is paid for the cotton. But we all know 
that while the cotton would continue to sell, to the very last bag, at 



32 

$40, the appearance of two million slaves in a year on the vendue 
table would reduce their price from §500 down to perhaps $5. 
l^et those same slaves would be just as competent to produce four 
million more bags of cotton the coming year, which might again 
sell for the same sum of $160,000,000, as before. It is unne- 
cessary to point out the reason of this. We annually sell all of 
our market produce, and the rest of the world are cash bidders ; 
but if we offered all of our slaves for sale, where would we find a 
purchaser? A reduction in the price of slaves need not alarm us ; 
slaves are not stock in trade. 

A word as to profits. Where there is competition, a reduc- 
tion in the price of labor is apt to cause a reduction in the price 
of that labor's produce; but since the latter depends upon the 
former, it follows that the profits, which is the difference between 
these two prices, is at least not likely to decrease, unless new com- 
petition intervenes, which is almost impossible in our case. So 
far from the profits of slave-labor being diminished by a further 
importation of slaves, it may be laid down, with as much certainty 
as any human probability can, that the capital now vested in 
slaves in the cotton States, and in all the new States, would be the 
first benefitted. And this is due to the fact, that, in all slave coun- 
tries, labor is owned conjointly with land. Large slave-holders 
are always large land-owners. Being largely possessed of culti- 
vable land, they always have capital which they design for the 
purchase of labor, particularly if labor is cheap ; and hence it may 
be inferred that whenever the slave-trade is opened, thei/ will be 
first in the market and foremost to avail themselves of a reduction 
in price, and thereby demonstrate the fact that the measure will 
benefit the great landed and slave interests of the country ; and, 
these being the bases of all others, the benefit would extend to 
them proportionately. 

If we would, what a lesson we could learn from the history of 
our older Stales ! Their agricultural fortunes were built up by 
native Africans and their immediate descendants, when slave labor 
was cheap. Apply to the Western rivers and swamps the same 
cheapness of labor that subdued the Eastern, and a much more 
rapid improvement will appear. Land now of little value would 
appreciate beyond precedent. Of all persons Western land spec- 
ulators ought to favor the slave-trade. 

But besides cheapening slave-labor, another effect of importing 
slaves would be to check Northern pressure upon the frontier 
Southern States, the consideration of which must be the subject 
of another letter. 



33 



No. 9. 



1 
/ 



"Even the Northern slave States, "The poor negro captives destined ] 

which but a few years ago were dis- for human sacrifice, would hardly call 

cussing the gradual abandonment of the it philanthropy to leave them to their 

system, are now silent about Abolition, fate, under pretext of a humane objec- ' 

immediate or prospective." — London tion to their purchase." — Faris Consti- * 

Times. tutionnel. 

The undoubted consequence of the present scarcity of slaves 
is a rise in their price, and the result of this is the concentration I 
of slave labor in the hands of the wealthy, and in the richest dis- 
tricts of country. And the final consequence must be, first, to 
render slavery a local iyiterest in those States having a marked j 
geographical difference of climate, soil, and production; and, 
second, to occasion an undue migration from the northern frontier ; 
States of the South into the others, both of , which are hurtful to ,■: 
Southern interests. This migration of slaves is naturally induced 
by the constant pressure of Northern opinion and influences upon j 
the border comities ; but it must be accelerated throughout the \ 
border States by the high price of slaves, which renders it profit- ' 
able, at the same time that it is prudent to yield to this Northern ' 
pressure, and make room for the cheapest labor. Thus it is that 
Northern pressure against, and Southern demandsybr slave labor, ; 
(under the existing prohibition of the slave-trade,) combine to ; 
prevent a natural diffusion of slavery throughout the border States. ; 
But, if the South at large were to receive additional labor from 
abroad, as all new countries require, no demonstration is requisite 
to show that slavery would be more generally diffused, and North- 
ern pressure against the institution would be much less potent. y 

Again : the high price of slaves brings hireling and slave labor iic 
into an undesirable conflict. There is a security and permanence : 
in the possession of slave labor quite unknown in the possession of 
hireling labor, and this is paid for in the price of the slave. This ; 
assurance of the secure possession of the slave's labor stands in 
lieu of the money paid for him, and is the essence of slave prop- j 
erty. The support of the slave is his wages ; and, since secure ] 
possession prevents those fluctuations in the item of support or I 
wages, which are occasioned, under the laws of demand and sup- ■ 
ply, in the case of hireling or insecure labor, they appear in the \ 
price of the slave; and, being occasioned by similar causes, are | 
similar in character. Hence, although the cost of the slave is cap- \ 
italj it must ordinarily be governed by the same general laws 
which control the wages of the hireling. This description of cap- < 
ital, then, unlike others, is subject to the laws which govern ; 
wages. And this suggests the great danger of introducing any ; 
disturbing cause adverse to a supply of slave labor corresponding ' 
with the demand for it, while the supply of hireling labor is un- ; 

3 



34 

bounded. The immediate consequence of such disturbing cause 
is a rise in the price of slaves very disproportionate to any 
rise in wages. This rise being occasioned by statute law, 
and not by the natural law of cause and effect, is artificial, and, 
being unaccompanied by any similar rise in washes, amounts to a 
bonus on hireling labor — a protective tax — and of course renders it 
proportionately cheaper, and practically invites it to a struggle with 
slave labor for the mastery, wherever climate will admit. The invita- 
tion is readily accepted. The contest begins in our towns and 
villages, and on our public works, railroads and canals. Secure 
labor, being capital, is necessarily timid; for nothing is more timid 
than capital. Insecure labor, not being a vested interest — having 
nothing to lose and everything to gain — pushes forward on a ven- 
ture. When to this are added the decided effects of the negro 
mania upon the public mind, and the marvelous supineness of 
slaveholders, it is easy to understand the danger of bringing hire- 
ling and slave labor into conflict in our more Southern States, or of 
encouraging the struggle in the border States, where it already 
exists. Artificially high price for slaves, naturally low wages for 
hirelings, and unrelenting Abolition hostility to the South when 
brought into co-operative action, must conspire to our embarrass- 
ment and ruin. 

It may be objected that high price, whether artificial or not, is 
beneficial to some of the Southern States. On this point, much is 
to be said when the discussion becomes more minute; for the 
present, it is sufficient to know that low price would benefit by 
much the greater number. The truth is too palpable to be ques- 
tioned, that large and commanding interests in the South need a 
speedy addition to their productive capacity. And if thisaddition 
is to be accompanied by a general reduction in the price of slaves, 
surely a small majority in a few States will not clog the progress 
and prosperity of all the rest ! Is it not to be expected that Texas, 
Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi and other States would like to 
stock their plantations upon the same cheap terms that their elder 
sisters, Virginia and the Carolinas, did ? Besides, is it not policy 
for the older States to put it within the power of their small farm- 
ers and mechanics to purchase a few slaves at a reasonable price ? 
If this were done, an improvement would be witnessed similar to 
that mentioned in the case of Georgia; a new impulse would be 
given to the productive industry of the whole South, and a yoke 
would be removed which has been more fatal to our material 
progress and political power than all the tariffs and compromises 
of Congress put together, hurtful as they have been. If it were 
desired to destroy the former equilibrium between the North and 
South, and to cripple the prosperity of the latter, in a loaij more cer- 
tain than any other, the plan would be to cut off the supply of 
labor needed for the demands of accumulating capital. Capital 
would thus be forced to seek investment abroad, and home indus- 
try would soon become tributary to foreign progress. This is the 



35 

curse under which the South has languished for fifty years. With 
one hand we have shut the door against an increase of labor from 
abroad, vvliile with the other we have opened a vent for our pro- 
ductive labor and capital. 

Having mentioned the concentration of slave property in the 
hands of comparatively few individuals as one of the evil conse- 
quences of a continued scarcity of slaves, I must ask not to 
be understood as saying that every Southern man, be he rich or 
poor, slaveholder or non-slaveholder, is not vitally interested in 
preserving and protecting slavery, just as he is with respect to land 
and property in general ; yet it may well be questioned whether 
his interest is more enlisted in one case than in the other, and 
whether, if slavery becomes a monied monopoly, he would not 
be much more tempted to recreancy in one case than in the other. 
A deadly war is waging against us; and while we are fortifying 
our position against external enemies, we should be careful to ])re- 
serve our internal strength. To do this, a common interest should 
not only exist in theory, but be visible and material, in order to 
he felt. The pauper feels no interest in the prosperity of banks, 
nor in the price of stocks; but the small stockholder of a few 
shares feels as deep an interest in the dividends as the owner of 
many; and we may be assured that he whose capital consists of 
a few negroes is just as earnest and reliable a defender of slavery 
as he who owns five hundred. 

It would be well for those in whose hands this property is be- 
coming concentrated, to avoid a perpetual exclusion of slaves from 
the farms or the work-shops of their poorer fellow-citizens, by re- 
fusing to monopolize slave labor, (under the prohibitory law of 
Congress which virtually gives it its price,) and thereby re- 
pudiate the erection of a slave aristocracy in the very heart 
of the South. It is as much as we can do to keep our external 
enemies at bay ; let us occasionally glance within. I do not seek 
to justify^ still less to propagate unfounded opinions; but have no 
hesitation in saying it is the duty of those intrusted with legisla- 
tive powers to place us, the Southern people, upon an equal footing 
of free-trade in labor with other people, by removing this fifty years' 
embargo on slave labor. And if they fail at least to make the 
effort, they merit the reproach which time will surely justify — a 
reproach which may not reach o?^r ears, but which, when our fair 
fields shall become a howling wilderness, may sigh forth, in 
cadence with the passing winds, the dirge of a fallen race. God 
forbid that such a requiem should break upon the harmony of his 
creation ? But, hemmed in, and beset as we are, it is the part of 
wisdom to take a lesson from experience. There is a temerity 
greater than that of displeasing political parties. It is possible to 
t-ntail upon tiieSouili a worse cata'^trophe than a dissolution of the 
Lmooj fVfn \t ;t bv accotr.patiit-a ijy tne ravages ot war. Tlu-re 
is such a thing as rending the ligaments of society! If, through 
a course of blind fatuity, we permit our enemies to thrust that 



36 

cursed event upon us, let the advocates of high price and monop- 
oly remember, that while the rich man's slave, "clanking his man- 
acles, will leap up to join the dreadful revelry/' the poor man may 
be induced to recoil from the contest, thanking the fate which ex- 
cluded him from the monopoly, and consoling himself with the 
delusion that he, at least has nothing to lose in the struggle. 



No. 10. 



" With all the readiness which self- " Unfortunately, the barbarism which 

interest induces, they have learned the reigns on that continent is exercised 

arguments against limiting slavery and independently of all outside pressure, 

slave importation, from our mishaps, our When an African chief does not sell his 

acknowledgments of failure, from their slaves, he kills them." — Paris Constitu- 

own prosperity, and from our depend- tionnel. 
ence upon them." — London Times. 

Under ordinary circumstances, labor will seek the best lands ; 
but, under the pressure of high price, it must actually abandon 
those of inferior quality. And where a difference in the quality 
of land is strongly marked by geographical lines, one part having 
a preponderance of slave and the other of hireling labor, the natu- 
ral competition between those systems is not only stimulated, but 
made sectional. This is an evil to be avoided at all times; but in 
the frontier Southern States, where the effect of price is most 
readily felt, and where abolition influence must have a more or 
less direct operation, this sectional feature of the competition is 
liable at any time to become political, and should be discouraged 
by every fair means. 

It w^ould astonish most Southern Legislatures for any member 
openly to declare himself an Abolitionist; wrath and indignation 
would be heaped upon him; yet for thirty years there have been 
Abolitionists in the Legislatures of some of the frontier States. 
Nobly as those States have battled in defense of Southern civili- 
zation, it must be plain to the impartial reader of their history 
that, after all, nothing has saved them from the Abolition crusade 
but the impossibility of peaceful emancipation. Even the new 
State of Missouri, which nearly severed the Union in 1820 that 
she might have slaves, already harbors in her metropolis an open, 
active and successful abolition party. For all this there is a ready 
explanation. The- slaves of those States are owned by compara- 
tively few, in distinct sections, and their labor is gradually sup- 
planted by that of hirelings. What are the facts ?* 

* The proportion of slaveholders to the white population of Maryland is 3.8 per 
cent, Virginia 6.2 per cent, Kentuckey 5 percent, and Missouri 3.2 per cent, ac- 
cording to the U. S. census for 1850. 



37 

The slave population of Delaware and Maryland has steadily 
diminished ; that of Delaware, from nine to two thousand ; and of 
these, three-fourths are in the southern county of Sussex. That of 
Maryland has decreased twenty-five per cent, in forty years; and 
at the present moment one-half are owned in the counties south of 
Baltimore and west of the Chesapeake, where the bulk of the 
tobacco crop is made; while the white population of these coun- 
ties is but a tenth of the whole State, showing their weakness in 
the Legislature in the event of an abolition crisis. 

In Virginia, though the slave population has not actually dimin- 
ished, such is the combination of causes, that the compara- 
tive increase has been trifling; and now four-fifths of her slaves 
are east of the Blue Ridge, in an area of about a third of her terri- 
tory, which though containing her chief cities, has but a third of 
her white population ; showing again a minority in the Legisla- 
ture. There are, perhaps, twenty counties in Western Virginia 
whose aggregate slave population is but half that of the little 
county of Surry, on James river, and scarcely exceeds that of 
Warwick. And when w^e reflect that there are but 6,000 slaves 
in the county of St. Louis, in Missouri, and more than 130,000 
whites, who have assembled from every part of the Union and of 
the worlds w^e need no longer be surprised at finding the metropolis 
of that large slave State in the clenched grasp of Abolitionists. 

The immense preponderance of franchised hireling labor insures 
such a result, ai^ nothing can avert it. It is impossible that it 
could have been avoided under the existing laws and circum- 
stances of the country. The faithful and untiring opposition to 
the inroads of abolition which the border States have sustained 
during a long and harassing struggle entitle them to the highest 
praise from their more Southern sisters ; yet it is vain to deny 
that, w^hat with the thefts and influences of the Abolitionists ren- 
dering slave property insecure in the border counties on the one 
hand, and the growing demand for slaves in the more Southern 
States on the other, a diminution of direct and general interest in 
slavery must follow in those States, which the rest of the South 
cannot witness with indifference. The concentration of slaves in 
geographical sections is as little to be desired as their monopoly 
by individuals, unless in either case it be the result of natural 
causes; which is impossible until we have a free trade in labor, 
until the embargo on slave and the bonus on hireling labor are 
removed. 

Here again I must ask not to be misunderstood. In alluding to 
a conflict between hireling and slave labor in this and previous let- 
ters, and in using the term "hireling," as I do, in contradistinction 
to slave, I mean no disparagement to the white man whom fate has 
consigned to even the humblest occupation. I am adverting to an 
undeniable fact, and comparing two essentially different systems 
of labor. Since this subject has been under discussion it has been 
urged that while it is desirable that slavery should be strengthened 
in every way, yet if slave labor should be cheapened, hireling 



38 

labor would be also. And the poor man, be he farmer or me- 
chanic, would have smaller profits and would, therefore, be less 
able to purchase a slave. The proposition may be expressed in 
this way: The working man lives by his labor. If slave labor 
is cheapened or reduced in price, his income will also be reduced, 
and hence he will be less able to put up funds for the purchase of 
a slave. But this contains more than one fallacy. A reduction in 
the price of slaves, if occasioned by the importation of Africans, 
would be confined chiefly to slaves employed in agriculture, in 
household duties, or as yet untrained in mechanic arts. The wages 
of the working man would consequently not be materially reduced, 
because he is employed not in agriculture, nor in household 
afl^airs, but in the mechanic arts. Hence it is an error to say that 
a reduction in the price of slaves generall}^ would be a reduction 
in his wages, at least in the same proportion. But suppose it were 
so that the wages of the white mechanic, for example, is reduced 
in the same proportion as the price of the slave on a cotton plan- 
tation. Must it not follow that other reductions of price will be 
experienced in every department? And will not the ability of 
the mechanic to accumulate money to buy a slave be the same in 
comparison with the price of the slave? Take a case. A car- 
penter wants to buy a negro girl to help his wife cook and wash, 
and he wants a negro boy to train up at his own trade, so that his 
son and his daughter as they grow, instead of being required to 
toil at the wash tub and the work bench and grow up in ignorance, 
may be allowed to go to school and obtain an education. With 
negroes selling at $800, his wages amount to say 81000. Now, 
if the price of negroes falls to $400, the supposition in this case is 
that his wages will fall to 8500, (a monstrous supposition to be 
sure, but only made for the sake of argument.) Every thing else 
^iv ST fall in the same proportion, or the argument does not hold. 
Well, suppose he annuallj'- saved 8200 when his wages were 
81000. At the end of four years he could buy a slave for 8800, 
and at the end of four more he could buy another at the same 
price. He and his family then, at the end of eight years would 
be provided with two valuable servants. Now take the case of 
his reduced wages. With an income of 8500 he saves 8100 per 
annum for the specified purpose. Negroes selling at 8400, he 
will be enabled at the end of four years to buy one, and at the end 
of four more, another. He is hence, even under this absurd sup- 
position, not the less able to purchase a slave from his reduction of 
wages, as some argue he would be. But the supposition is inad- 
missible. It is impossible that the wages of the white mechanic 
can fall from a thousand to five hundred dollars, because the price 
of slaves falls from eight hundred to four. And the conclusion is 
manifest that a reduction in the price of slaves not occasioning a 
correspo)iding (or not probably any) reduction of the wages of the 
white mechanic, so far from rendering him less able to buy a 
slave, increases his ability to do so. Facts sustain this conclusion. 
The price of slaves fluctuates more or less with the price of pro- 



89 

duce, but the workinrr man's income is by no means as variable as 
the price of cotton. The experience of every community throuj^h- 
out the South will attest this. It is certain that no one would be 
more benefitted by a reduction in the price of slaves than the 
workinf( man of the South. Let his trade be what it may, his 
journeymen and apprentices will include all the slaves he can 
afford to buy. Even at present high prices, every one acquainted 
with Southern affairs knows how invariably the working man 
buys slaves as his means increa^:e, and how profitably he employs 
them in his own occupation to the great benefit of himself and his 
family. 

The proposition then, that a reduction in the price of slaves, as 
a consequence of the importation of Africans, would injure the in- 
terests of the poorer class of white men at the South, is untenable. 
I am inclined to believe that quite a beneficial effect w^ould follow. 
It was not, however, in this light simply that I have been viewing 
the contest between hireling and slave labor. I have had more 
particular allusion to the discriminating laws of the country which 
allow a o-reat influx of one description of labor from abroad, and 
entirely forbids the other. This, I contend, is an odious discrim- 
ination which heaps incalculable injury upon the South, and 
operates as a bounty to the migrating labor of the Northern and 
European States, v/hich labor, be it ever remembered, nobody objects 
to hiring at the lowest possible wages ! While some are so infatu- 
ated with the idea that cheap slave labor would ruin the country, 
that the project of importing Africans is seriously regarded as the 
most hurtful to the South which could well be conceived. 

But does it not appear strange that we desire a cheapening of 
everything we buy, except slave labor, without which we would 
have the means of buying nothing ? It is very odd how we throw 
embarrassments around the very institution we are battling for. 
The laws of the country hold out every inducement to the immi- 
gration of hireling labor, but prohibit and denounce the importa- 
tion of slaves. The result has been, in the course of half a cen- 
tury, to add nearly four millions of population to the hireling 
States /Vom abroad. Here is a body of hireling- labor sufficient to 
establish fou'* large States of a million inhabitants each, while vje 
have not received slave labor enough for the humblest farm, but, 
on the contrary, have had enough stolen from us to build the 
Pacific railroad. Is it not a contradiction, then, which appeals to 
us so constantly in behalf of Kansas? which urges upon us the 
great importance of extending our area, while that very extension, 
as long as the Slave Trade is prohibited, must comparatively di- 
minish our labor at home ? 

Your correspondent yields to no one in appreciating the import- 
ance of an extension of territory, under the existing condition of 
our federal relations; but, be assured, the North can give us 
heavy odds and beat us at the game, so long as she receives 
400,000 immigrants annually, and we not a single African to stake 
against them. The more territory we acquire, the greater is our 



need of more labor. What would it profit the South to acquire the 
entire valley of the Amazon, and yet be prohibited from carrying 
labor there to reclaim and cultivate it? It is highly desirable 
that we should acquire territory. I, at least, would like to see our 
institutions spread over every acre of the continent, from Norfolk 
to Rio; but we want more than bare swamps, prairies, cane- 
brakes and forests — we must have also sufficient labor to convert 
them into fruitful fields and habitable homes. 

It would be well to review our position in this precarious game 
of putting new States on the chess-board, and calculate the 
chances of a checkmate. We may find the African Slave Trade 
a more essential element in the game than we have been in the 
habit of supposing. Is it not manifest that, without receiving 
slaves from Africa, we cannot cope, in the settling of territories, 
with the hireling States, which receive a monthly reinforcement of 
30,000 peasants and artisans from Europe ? Is any arg^ument 
needed to prove this ? 

It is bad policy and false economy to grasp at territory with 
one hand and exclude labor from it with the other. Land is dead 
capital without labor. Which of us would buy up all the land in 
the neighborhood, and deliberately exclude the very labor for 
which we monopolize the soil ? Yet this is the course the South 
is pursuing. We lavish our treasure in the purchase of territory, 
and exhaust our ingenuity in excluding labor. We want slave 
States formed out of the Territories of the United States ; yet we 
render slaves so scarce, and their price so high, that most of the 
first settlers are unable to carry slaves with them. Emigrants 
are generally poor; and no poor man can give 81,000 or 81,500 
for a slave to carry to Kansas, New Mexico, Oregon, California, or 
anywhere else. 

Look at Kansas at this moment! With a population seeking 
admission into the Union, with "the Dred Scott decision" and 
a ''pro-slavery" constitution ; there are not more than three hun- 
dred slaves within her limits !* But let a score of steamers, laden 
with slaves from Africa, ascend our Western rivers, and enter our 
Gulf and our Pacific ports, and land their laborers at the very door 
of the emigrant's cabin at the cost of two or three or four hundred 
dollars each, and, notwithstanding they are '^ barbarians," ihey 
will each find o.'-'- border ruffian''' ready and able to subdue him, 
and put him to work. New England humanity would be forgot- 
ten ; Northern capital would be invested in slaves; ''Sharpens 
rifles" would rust, and it is even possible the "shrieks for free- 
dom" would become faint and sickly. Land speculations would 
revive, and the locations and sales would be unprecedented. 

In the present condition of things, however, fellow-Southerners, 
it cannot be denied, we are deficient in labor in the States, and 
powerless to supply the Territories in competition with the North. 

*These letters were written in February last, and therefore before the Kansas 
Campromise was efiected in Congress. 



• 



41 

We are loud in our demands for slave States, but sadly perverse in 
excludino- slaves. A slave State without a goodly proportion of 
slaves can exist onli/ on parchment. If we have territory, we must 
have labor, or it is worthless. Land cannot find labor when it is 
excluded by law, but in new countries labor will always find land. 
And this leads to a point of view to which your attention will be 
called in another letter. 



/ 



No. 11 



"It is not by preaching, or protesting, "In the colonies, the population is 

or threatening, or denouncing, that the insufficient, and it never can be aug- 

objects of humanity can be attained." — mented by a European emigration." — 

London Times. Paris Constitutionnel. 

It will hardly be contended that an over-production of cotton or 
other produce will be the consequence of a further increase in 
the productive power of the Southern States. Our soil supplies 
a part of the food and clothing- consumed by a 'large portion of 
the civilized world, and that, too, at a comparatively lower price, 
and of a better quality than can be obtained elsewhere. The con- 
sumption of our staples increases so rapidly, that it has far sur- 
passed our power to produce. Already, in the commercial empo- 
riums of the world, is project added to project for an additional 
supply of cotton, and, as before mentioned, the cry for ^^ another 
America" is the ominous indication of the inadequacy of our 
crops. Objections of this sort, then, to the importation of slaves, 
scarcely need serious refutation. The objection that the importa- 
tion of slaves from Africa would occasion an over-production of 
cotton, reduce its price, and injure the agricultural interests of 
the country, is speculative, and not likely to prove well founded. 
A detailed consideration of it would require too much space, and 
hence but a few general observations will suffice. It should be 
borne in mind that the demand for produce must always control the 
demand for labor, hence the quantity of labor in requisition is de- 
termined by the quantity of produce needed for consumption ; and 
that cheap production is sure to increase and extend consumption. 
Great as the increase of cotton culture has been here, its manu- 
facture and consumption in Europe has increased more rapidly. 
It is impossible always to produce precisely the amount required 
for consumption. There will be more or less produced than is 
actually needed, generally more. But a slight surplus of such 
an article as cotton is sure, in the end, to induce all increased 
investment in manufactures, and an increased consumption of the 
fabrics. This has been the history of cotton ever since Whit- 
ney's invention of the gin, and there is no reason to suppose that 



42 

like causes will no long-er effect like results. But not only does 
increased production beget increased consumption in point of 
quantity, it also extends the area of consumption, and calls new 
markets into being, besides extending and enlarging the old ones. 
And every new market opened will give a new impulse to the 
commerce of the country by opening a new channel of trade, and 
creating new demands for produce as well as manufactures, both 
abroad and at home. This is beneficial, not only commercially, 
but politically. Trade is peace. The dependence of one people 
upon another for their respective produce does more to preserve 
the peace of nations than perhaps all other causes. How great, 
then is the advantage to this country of increasing and extending 
the consumption of our produce among the nations of the earth, 
and thereby increasing and extending our commercial and politi- 
cal influence and power, and securing peace ! If the price of 
cotton falls, as a consequence of importing labor, it must not be 
forgotten that the cost of producing it will have fallen also; and 
cheap production is the aim of all men and all countries, in all 
all pursuits. No reason has yet been assigned why the produc- 
tion of cotton should be an exception. 

I will now cite, from official sources, the effect produced by high 
price and costly production, from which the effect of low price 
and cheap production may be inferred. 

From the report of Mr. Claiborne, the commissioner sent by 
this government to Europe, in 1857, to collect information relative 
to the consumption of cotton, the following facts are derived : 
He noticed at Rouen and at Ghent, two of the largest manufactur- 
ing emporiums on the continent, evidence of an increase in the 
consumption of East India cotton, and ^'^ the reason assigned was, 
the very high price of American cotton, which compe/led the spinners 
to look for other supplies.'' ''At Rouen, particularly, the high 
price of American cotton was complained of by the mill owners, 
and, as a consequence of it, I was told that, on an estimated con- 
sumption of 140,000 bales, for 1857, in the departments of La 
Seine Imperieure, L' Eure, and Orne at least 15,000 would be of 
East Indian growth. Some of the spinners there had begun to 
spin East India cotton unmixed" with the American staple as 
heretofore. 

Mr. De Hemptieme, an extensive spinner of Ghent, "consumes 
East India cotton exclusively, which he converts into yarns from 
No. 4 to 18. Delivered at the mill, it costs about 6d. per pound, 
and he thinks its consumption will rapidly increase in Belgium, 
as American cotton has reached so high a price," 

"The annual consumption in the mills belonging to Mr. Kunz, 
in the canton of Zurich, Switzerland, is between 6 and 7,000 bales 
of raw cotton, having diminished somewhat under the great rise 
in prices." 

Mr. Klugkist, President of the Chamber of Commerce at Bre- 
men, writes to Mr. Claiborne, "So far, the United States has been 
the country which supplied the cotton, but owing to its increasing 



43 

value, efforts are making to get supplies from the East Indies, and 
this year about 20 per cent, of the imports will be Surat cotton. 
It is not as good, but manufacturers are compelled to resort to it, by 
the high rates of the North American cotton. 

A member of the largest cotton importing house in Russia as- 
sured Mr. Claiborne "it was not unlikely that some who were 
engaged in cotton spinning without ever having had the necessary 
capital, would have to succumb under increasing competition and 
high prices." 

With respect to the future consumption of raw cotton in Eu- 
rope, the observation of the chief manager of one of the largest 
mills in St. Petersburg is applicable throughout the continent: — 
" He regarded the prospect for its. increase in Russia as very good, 
and on this point expressed some solicitude as to the capacities of 
our cotton-growing States to keep up with the increasing demand 
throughout the civilized world for that raw material.'^ 

The following prices will give a correct idea of the compara- 
tive value of American and other cottons : 

In Saxony, when i^mericas are worth 16 cents, Surats are worth 1] cents. 

In Bremen, " " " 15 " " " 10 '• 

In Russia, " " '' 10 rubles pr pood, Asiatics bring 6 @ 7 cts. 

In Switzerland. " " 25 cts pr Swiss pound, Egyptians bring 28 " 

Most Staples are inferior to American, and hence sell at a lower 
price; but when American cotton exceeds a certain price, other 
staples are more profitably worked up, and are made to supply its 
place wherever it is possible. 

An idea of the rate at which the consumption of cotton of all 
descriptions has increased as prices decreased on the continent, 
and how it will increase if the supply is kept up at a moderate 
price, may be formed from the following facts: 

In France, in 1816, a kilograme of raw cotton sold for $1.12; 
in 1851 it sold for 28 cents, and similar rates prevailed in other 
parts of Europe. 

The annual average amount of raw cotton imported by France, 
between 1827 and 1886, was 73,625,200 lbs. The amount im- 
ported in 1856, was 225,067,600 lbs. 

Great Britain imported, in 1821, 168,000,000 lbs; in 1855, 
862,000,000 lbs; and in 1857, over 900,000,000 lbs. 

Russia imported, in 1826, 2,673,600 lbs; and in 1852, 62,940,- 
400 lbs. 

Bremen imported, in 1852, 9,470,400 lbs; and in 1856, 45,539,- 
500 lbs. 

Hamburg imported, in 1848, 17,776,200 lbs; and in 1855, 47,- 
083,400 lbs. 

Zolverein imported in 1847, 40,326,400 lbs; and in 1855, 118,- 
820,500. 

The importation of raw cotton into Austria, in 1856, exceeded 
that of 1855, by 15,553,000 pounds. That of Belgium increased 
from 22,000,000 to nearly 27,000,000 in five years ending with 
1855, and the actual consumption of cotton wool in Sardinia in- 



44 

creased during the same period from 7,200,000 lbs, to nearly 
10,000,000 lbs. ^ 

But although the consumption of cotton in Europe has increased 
so rapidly, there are some quarters where it is still comparatively 
but little used, and it will continue to increase with even greater 
rapidity, if the production of it is materially extended by the im- 
portation of slaves, and a reasonable reduction in its price ensues. 
Trade, like w^ater, seeks a level, and all artificial obstacles are 
barriers to the growth, wealth, and prosperity of nations. There 
may be no ground for fears of a rival in the production of cotton, 
but there is every reason why we should wish to increase and ex- 
tend its consumption as the demand for the fabrics increases. 
We hold a mortgage upon the good will of every people who con- 
sume our produce. 

In previous letters, the slave trade has been viewed simply as 
the importation of so much labor as may be needed; and there 
can be little doubt as to the benefit which would result from such 
an increase in our productive industry. But besides importing 
labor, we would be importing population also, the barbarism of 
which is certainly an objection. 

The two most prominent objections seem to be, that African 
barbarians would be unmanageable under our mild treatment, and 
inefficient as laborers; and, secondly, that a redundancy of pop- 
ulation would result. It would certainly be desirable to import 
enlightened and trained slaves, rather than barbarians. Any one 
would prefer an ^Esop to a cannibal. But ^sops do not abound 
in Africa, the only country from which we can import. And, if 
we cannot get an ^sop, we must needs take a cannibal, or do 
without. The question then arises, Shall we do without more 
slaves, or shall we have cannibals? Much is to be said on this 
point, much more than your correspondent will now venture upon. 
But it does seem clear that the objection of barbarism and canni- 
balism cannot be as forcible now as it may have been in our colo- 
nial times. And we are all living evidences of the fact, that the 
inconvenience of having to convert a savage into a civilized man 
has been abundantly recompensed by the advantages and profits 
of his labor and that of his descendants. 

In former days, when slaves were imported, our negro popula- 
tion was not as advanced in civilization as at present. The bulk 
of our slaves were either native Africans or their immediate de- 
scendants; and yet, even amid that ''mass of barbarians" the 
security of "isolated families" was complete. "After filling our 
fair land with "hideous barbarians," as eloquently expressed by 
another, our fathers did not find a "barren result." The result 
was pregnant! pregnant with wealth, prosperity, and independ- 
ence. Cotton, ^^ cheap cotton," was no "lame" nor "impotent con- 
clusion." Cotton was no new thing in the world, but "cAe«jt? 
cotton" was what the world wanted. We supplied the want ; the 
want increases, and hence our need of more barbarians. We have 
now nearly 4,000,000 native American slaves, and the annual in- 



45 

terspersion of a few thousand Africans among them can do no 
harm. The fear of insubordination as a consequence of importa- 
tion, seems to be not only unfounded, but sickly. It would come 
with a very bad grace from a Southern community to plead such 
a fear. It is the general impression, and is acknowledged as well 
by the slaves as his master that there is nothing our negroes are 
bad enough to attempt, which we are not powerful enough to frus- 
trate and punish. No successful rebellion of negroes has ever 
occurred in the United States. Local outbreaks happen in all 
ages and countries. Mobs, anarchy, and violence are much more 
frequent in hireling than in slave countries. And every occasion 
of the kind in the Southern States has been directly traced to 
outside influence — to the hostility of the Spaniards in our early 
colonial times, and to the so-called religious instruction of aboli- 
tion incendiaries, and the mad zeal of political demagogues more 
recently. But such Heaven-offending treachery, "though it walks 
only in the gloom of midnight, and shows its dark and dangerous 
brow at that dead hour, so suited to its machinations, will always 
be detected J nor can the most elaborate ingenuity hide it from 
prevention." No! This fear, if indeed it has any real existence, 
IS the bantling of abolition. Rebellion ! It is the most difficult 
of human achievements ! It requires a rare combination of still 
rarer qualities, and these, too, stimulated by flagrant oppression, 
even for its conception. 

May not, then, six millions of Southern freemen, with arms in 
their hands, and of a vastly superior race, safely venture upon 
the mastership of a i'ew thousand Africans, in addition to the hum- 
ble, ignorant, contented, and unarmed slaves already in their pos- 
session ? Neither the " horrors of St. Domingo,'^ nor the treachery 
of the "Sicilian vespers" will ever be imported from Africa, If 
they impend at all, they are fostered much nearer home; aye, even 
on the floor of the American Senate, and in the hall of the na- 
tion's representatives. The incense of insurrection and massacre 
burns only on those appropriate altars; the bloody hand of treason 
lurks behind the pillars of the capitol, and the dreadful war-cry 
is ready to be chanted under its roof. 

But redundancy is dreaded. Counting only upon the natural 
increase of our slave population, a redundancy has been seriously 
feared. This must be delusive. Why, it will require the lapse 
of ages for redundancy to ensue on this continent ! I say on this 
continent, because no one portion of it is destined to have a re- 
dundant population while others are but sparsely peopled, par- 
ticularly in the tropical and semi-tropical latitudes. Expansion 
and absorption by means of purchase, annexation, migration, con- 
quest, or otherwise, is the established rule of American progress. 
Nothing can check it. There is soil and resource enough on the 
American continent for the combined populations of Europe and 
Africa; and until w^e reach the density existing in some of the 
European States, we need not begin to calculate the chances of 
redundancy. The inviolable laws of nature regulate the growth 



46 

of population the same as they control other departments of cre- 
ation, and they will work out their results despite either of human 
fear or opposition. Throw speculation aside, and look at actual 
results ! The census tells you that in sixty years our slave popu- 
lation has been more than quadruplicated. Is there anything 
alarming in this? Our white population has not been stationary 
during all this time. Our territory, produce, and general wealth 
have increased space, and there is yet no approach to redund- 
ancy. 

In the year 1800, before the acquisition of Louisiana, Florida, 
Texas, and part of the Mexican dominions, the territory of the 
United States comprised about 788,000 square miles, and the pop- 
ulation was 5,300,000, or 6| per mile. In 1850, the one had in- 
creased to 3,000,000, and the other to 23,000,000, showing a density 
of but 7f per mile. Thus, in fifty years the proportion of popu- 
lation to territory increased but one inhabitant per mile. The 
proportion of exports to population shows a like result, and re- 
dundancy is as far off as ever. 

But, to confine ourselves to the States whose slave population is 
on the increase, excluding Delaware and Maryland, and all the 
Territories, what is the result of a half century ? In 1800, these 
States had about 372,000 square miles, to a population of 2,210,400, 
or 6 per mile. In 1850, they had 900,000 square miles, and 
8,938,400 inhabitants, or 9J per mile, showing the rate of increase 
in the proportion to be but 1 per cent, per annum. Whether this 
is too rapid an approach to redundancy, is readily answered. 
While we boast but ten inhabitants to the mile, what is the pro- 
portion subsisting in some of the European States? In Great 
Britain and Ireland it is 225; in France it is 172; in Prussia 151; 
in Austria 141; in Spain 78; in Turkey 73 ; and in Russia, with 
its frozen wastes, about 30. When, therefore the great fertility 
of our soil is considered, we may safely set ourselves down as in 
no very immediate danger of redundancy. 

Since 1830, our average annual production of cotton has in- 
creased from 1,000,000 to over 3,000,000 bales; and as to other 
productions of the soil and domestic resources, we have a stand- 
ing herd of 36,000,000 cattle, sheep, and swine, and slaughter for 
food §52,000,000 worth of these annually. With but 26,000,000 
acres under actual cultivation, in 15^50, our crop was 215,000,000 
pounds of rice, 335,000,000 bushels of corn, 23,000,000 bushels 
of wheat, and 44,000,000 bushels of potatoes, to say nothing of 
other grain and provisions. To this was added 2^0,000,000 
pounds of sugar, and 12,000,000 gallons of molasses for the sweet- 
ening, and over lGl),(/00,OiiO pounds of tobacco lo put in our pipes. 
With these facts before him, the candor of any one will decide 
whether the annual introduction of a few thousand Africans into 
this bountiful region, nol a Iwcruictk part of w/ilcli is undtr actual 
ciiulcatioii, is calculated to br:no' redundancy ur.nn u«:. 

il our po[;ulalJon were eii^ht-fuld denser, ihe proportion would 
be less than half that of France. It may be time then to discuss 



47 

the prospects of redundancy. "Sufficient unto the day is the evil 
thereof." Existing evils are sufficient. Imaginary ones alto- 
gether superfluous. If we put our house in order in this our day 
and generation, a remote posterity may be induced to epulate the 
example. The acknowledged evil of our day is a deficiency of 
labor to cultivate the earth, and it will tax our utmost endeavors 
to remedy it. The evil of some far distant day may be redund- 
ancy, but by that time our offspring will have secured the world 
for a market-place, and all mankind for customers. 

With these views, fellow-Southerners, and the many others ne- 
cessarily suggesting themselves, it is for you to decide whether 
any insurmountable obstacle to the importation of African labor 
exists in the Southern States. If you really believe the importa- 
tion is needed, it is to be hoped it will be perseveringly and deter- 
minedly sought after, without subterfuge, until it shall be accom- 
plished before the world in open day. It may be necessary to 
begin by importing ''emigrants;" if so, let them be hired for /i/e, 
as they were in the colony of Georgia, and not for fifteen or any 
other term of years. Do the thing boldly. 

It would perhaps be as well for me to leave off at this point, and 
relieve your attention, which is doubtless tired. But there are 
considerations relating to our treaty obligations respecting the 
slave trade which claim the serious attention of every citizen of 
the United States — an attention which is more pressingly de- 
manded every day. To these I will briefly refer in a few addi- 
tional letters. In the meantime a single word in relation to the 
act punishing the importation of slaves with death! It will be 
found just as inoperative at the South as the fugitive slave law is 
at the North. No American citizen will ever be hanged on South- 
ern soil for buying negroes until a few are hung at the North for 
stealing them. Piracy "on the high seas" is one thing — piracy 
on parchment is quite another. And if ever a case is made south 
of the Potomac, the difference will be duly manifested. 



48 
No. 12. 

"They have the law of nations on " Our Government, having recognized 
their side, and may quote it in answer emigration as at once useful and Loral, 
to any assertion of our rights to interfere has authorized traders to engage labor- 
in the cause of humanity. They are ers in Asia and Africa for the French 
free nations, and Africa is a free coast. Colonies. Up to the present time, Asia 
Negroes are necessary to raise the cot- has furnished a very small number of 
ton, sugar, coffee, and tobacco, which laborers. Will the supply be more 
the world wants. * * Unless the Afri- abundant in future? We know not. 

can be used as a laborer, the fairest re- India is not a French Colony." Paris 

gions of the New World must remain a Coiistitutionnel. 
desert." — -Liondon Times. 

This is true. We have the law of nations on our side. Chan- 
celJor Kent says: "Declaring the crime piracy does not make it 
so.'^ The Supreme Court declared, in the case of the Antelope, 
that " a trade could not be considered as contrary to the law of 
nations, which had been authorized and protected by the usages 
and laws of all commercial nations." The British High Court of 
Admiralty, on the appeal in the case of Le Louis, decided that 
the right of visitation and search, on the high seas, did not exist 
in time of peace. Lord Stowell held, in this case, that ''no 
nation could exercise the right ol visitation and search upon the 
commerce and unappropriated parts of the ocean, except upon the 
belligerent claim. No one nation had a right to force its way to 
the liberation of Africa, by trampling on the independence of 
other States; or to procure eminent good by means that are un- 
lawful; or to press forward to a great principle by breaking 
through other great principles that stand in the way. The right 

OF VISITATION AND SEARCH DID NOT EXIST IN TIME OF PEACE. If it 

belonged to one nation it belonged to all, and would lead to gigantic 
mischief and universal war. Other nations had refused to accede 
to the British proposal of a reciprocal right to search in the African 
seas, and it would require an express convention to give the right 
of search in time of peace.'' Sir Robert Peel "entirely and utterly 
disclaimed" the right of search, and added : '' U we know that an 
American vessel were furnished with all the materials requisite 
for the slave trade, still we would be bound to let that American 
vessel pass on." And Lord Aberdeen assured Mr. Everett that 
" the British cruisers are not instructed to detain American ves- 
sels under any circumstances whatever; on the contrary, they are 
ordered to abstain from all interference with them, be they slaves 
or otherwise." Besides, '' Africa Z5 a free coast;" it is not, like 
India, a British colony. 

Being assured, then, on the one hand, of the necessity for more 
slaves, and the consequent importance of their importation, and, 
on the other, that we have the law of nations and the decision of 
British courts and ministers on our side, it remains to inquire into 
the treaty of stipulations existing between the United States and 
Great Britain. To appreciate fully the bearing of this alliance, 
it is necessary to understand its origin and progress. That it 



49 

originated in tlie prevailing abolition sentiment of former days, 
could, if necessary, be shown from unquestionable evidence. The 
abolition of the slave trade was conceived and accomplished as a 
leading element in the general scheme of emancipation, both in 
England and America; albeit Southern men, under the delusion 
of their times, lent themselves to the measure. Of course, then, 
the alliance between these countries must be the same in its nature 
and origin. A brief summary of historical facts will explain every- 
thing. 

This alliance was originally proposed by the British Govern- 
ment, and, as it now stands, there is not an American feature in 
it. It is a British scheme of half a century's standing. The in- 
cipient step was taken as early as 1806, as appears from the 24th 
article of the treaty of amity, commerce, and navigation between 
the two Governments, signed at London on the 31st of December, 
1806, and from the despatch of the American negotiators, Messrs. 
Monroe and Wm. Pinckney, to the State Department, dated 3d 
of January, 1807. The article need not be reproduced. The 
despatch proceeds to say: ''The 24th article engages .hat the 
parties shall communicate ^to each other the laws which their re- 
spective legislatures may enact for the abolition or limitation of 
the African slave trade, and that they will also use their best en- 
deavors to procure the co-operation of other Powers for the com- 
f)lete abolition of that trade. * * * Mr. Fox had taken great 
interest in this question, and it is understood that, in suggesting 
the idea, in the address of the House of Commons to the King, of 
obtaining the co-operation of other Powers, the United States were 
held particularly in view. The British Commissioners proposed 
the article, and showed great desire that we should agree to it. 
As this stipulation was not comprised within the scope of our in- 
structions, we have thought it our duty to explain to you the cause 
to which its admission into the treaty is to be attributed." 

It was doubtless out of this stipulation that the tenth article of 
the treaty of Ghent sprung, seven years after. The ideas and 
phraseology of the two are similar; ''humanity and justice" being 
the talismanic v/ords in each. The whole proceeding w^as a stroke 
of British policy, and it matters not who was spokesman on the 
occasion. This article was but the natural consequence of its 
forerunner. The project of a closer alliance, however, like all 
other British Abolition schemes, soon took root in this country. A 
colonization society was organized within three years! But let me 
ask pardon in advance. I've nothing against the meinbers of this 
society, and don't want any of them to get vexed with me. I only 
wish, in common with a large portion of the Southern people, that 
they had never associated, and, moreover, that they would now 
w'md up as soon as possible. African liberty will not be cradled 
in Liberia. 

" Freedom is 
The brilliant gift of Heav'n, 'tis reason's self, 
The kin of deity." 

4 



50 

The original object of this association, we all know, was to 
transport the free negroes of Virginia and Maryland, and other 
States, to Africa; but its practical operation is now complained of 
as ^Uenfold more in furtherance of the emancipation of slaves for 
deportation to Africa, than of removing the negroes previously- 
free/' and as productive of no other result than a large increase in 
the number of post obit emancipations. Be this as it may, it is 
certain that early in 1817 the society began to assume the charge 
of the slave trade. The committee of the Federal House of 
Representatives, to whom their petition was referred, reported 
two resolutions — one calling on the Executive to negotiate treaties 
for '' the entire and immediate abolition of the traffic in slaves," 
and the other to obtain the consent of England to the transporta- 
tion of "free negroes" from the United States to Sierra Leone. 
Neither of the propositions, however, was acted upon at the time. 
During the next session of Congress, the same committee recom- 
mended that the President be requested to "take measures for pro- 
curing suitable territory in Africa for colonizing free people of 
color, with thejr own consent," and that armed vessels should oc- 
casionally be sent to Africa, for the purpose of interrupting the 
slave trade. These, also, were not adopted; but in 1819 the 
"act in addition to the acts prohibiting the Slave Trade" was 
passed, and ^100,000 appropriated to carry it into effect. To 
convey an idea of the operation of this act, it is sufficient to slate^ 
upon the authority of the report of the Secretary of the Navy for 
1880, that during the ten years previous, 250 "recaptured ne- 
groes" were carried to Liberia, and settled there, at an expense to 
the Government of §264,710, or an average of §1,047 each ! Dear 
humanity, this. 

In 1820, the act declaring the slave trade piracy was passed. At 
this session, also, the Colonization Society was incorporated, and 
in response to a memorial from it, the President was finally re- 
quested, by resolution, "to negotiate with foreign Powers for an 
entire and immediate abolition of the slave trade," and an inef- 
fectual effort was again made to appropriate the use of naval ves- 
sels to the objects of the Colonization Society. At this juncture 
began the train of events which resulted in the treaty of Wash- 
ington. Nor had the British Government been idle in the mean- 
time. 

In 1818, it was proposed by Lord Castlereagh, I think, that 
the British and American Governments should concede "to each 
other's ships-of-war a qualified right of search, with a power of de- 
taining the vessels of either State, with slaves actually on board." 
This was refused; but let it be borne in mind, the proposition 
came from England a year before the act of 1819, and two years 
before the famous piracy act of 1820. In 1819, Parliament sent 
a petition to the Prince Regent for a renewal of " his beneficent 
endeavors, more especially with the Governments of France and 
the United States of America, for the effectual attainment of an 
object we all profess to have in view." The matter remained in 



51 

suspense two years, when it was again opened by the British 
Minister at Washington, (eariy in 1823,) Avho called on the Secre- 
tary of State either to assent to the plan of search and detention 
proposed by his Government, or to suggest a better one. This 
elicited the following resolution from the House of Representa- 
tives : 

''That the President of the United States be requested to enter 
upon and prosecute, from time to time, such negotiations with the 
several maritime Powers of Europe and America as he may deem 
expedient, for the effectual abolition of the African slave trade, 
and its ultimate denunciation as piracy under the law of nations, 
by the consent of the civilized world." 

In keeping with which the Secretary proposed to the British 
Minister, in reply, that his Government should adopt the piracy 
plan likewise, as preferable to that of search. Thus had each Gov- 
ernment thirty-five years ago laid down its oivn distinct proposition : 
the one clinging to the halter as the shortest remedy, the other 
prefering a chase as the surest. 



No. 13. 



" In fine, negroes must be had at any "As for China, it is so distant that we 
cost ; and no nation has a right to im- cannot look to it for emigrants. * * * 
pose its own scrupulosity on other free But Africa continues to be the source 
communities. If England has ruined whence the colonies first drew their 
her own colonies, that is no reason laboring population. It is convenient 
why she should seek to check the prog- to our American possessions. Its in- 
ress of the whole American continent, habitants are gentle, robust, sociable, 
* * * In some form, or under some and inclined to agricuUural pursuits, 
pretext, the slave owners of the other Then, in addition to this, they are op- 
hemisphere will again attempt to obtain pressed, and subject to the horrors of 
a supply of negroes from the coast of perpetual anarchy in their own coun- 
Africa."— London Times. try,"— Parw Constitutionnel. 

In my last letter it was shown that the American and British 
governments had widely different views as to the most effectual 
method of suppressing the slave trade. Both turned out to be 
impracticable ! The British government did not immediately enteiv^ 
into the piracy scheme. But while acknowledging the great 
advantage to the cause of abolition, of a general denunciation of 
the slave trade, still clung to the "right of search.'' And the 
British minister again submitted that a limited right of search, 
under regulations mutually agreed to, was the only practical 
course; adding that if the policy was doubtful it could be ad- 
hered to only for a limited time, and if found objectionable it could 
>be abandoned. This occasioned a deeper interest in the negotia- 
tion, and a longer delay. The ''Panama mission" was, at the 



52 

same time, a subject of deep interest in the country. In the 
meantime the President of the United States, in pursuance of the 
resolution of the House of Representatives, already quoted, invi- 
ted the several maritime powers concerned to enter into the 
desired negotiations, preliminary to a general declaration that the 
slave trade shall be piracy under the law of nations. The enor- 
mity of the farce, however, was too glaring to command the seri- 
ous attention of any except Great Britain and the new republic of 
Colombia. 

Negotiation with the British government was resumed. It was 
proposed that Parliament should impose the penalty of death, as 
pirates, upon all British subjects engaged in the traffic. And, if 
I am not mistaken, an act of the sort was passed at the next ses- 
sion of Parliament. This is the only point the American govern- 
ment succeeded in obtaining British assent to in the whole affair; 
no very great triumph, to be sure, and, so far as it affects the law. 
of nations, (the end to which American policy was aiming,) it was 
simply worthless. The Glueen's Bench might hang a thousand 
British subjects for buying negroes; yet the law of nations would 
remain unchanged. But it was further proposed on the part of 
the British government, that the naval vessels of the two coun- 
tries should have the mutual right of search only on the coasts of 
Africa^ America and the West Indies, those which were alone sup- 
posed to be infested by the newly-made pirates under municipal 
law, or perhaps they may be more properly called "latter-day" 
pirates. A treaty was duly negotiated on this basis. The whole 
middle and southern Atlantic ocean was to be scoured by the Brit- 
ish navy, with the Gulf of Mexico and the Mediterranean for 
head quarters, vis-a-vis. It was an excellent way of empowering 
the British flag with the police of the high seas; but, for once, the 
fates were adverse, and the project failed. 

At that time the American Senate was a grave, illustrious, and 
patriotic body, reflecting the wisdom of the country. And when 
this treaty was submitted to them, they hesitated to ratify it. 
They doubted. The President urged them in a confidential mes- 
sage. A single sentence of it, though intended for another pur- 
pose, strikingly illustrates the false position in which the country 
was placed by the piracy project in general, and the piratical act 
of 1820 in particular. -^He said to the Senate : " To invite all 
nations, with the statute of piracy in our hands, to adopt its prin- 
ciples as the law of nations, and yet to deny to all the common rights 
of search for the pirate, whom it would be impossible to detect with- 
out entering and searching the vessel, would expose us not simply to 
the charge of inconsistency^'' the additional word, stupidity, being 
possibly held in mental reservation, through deference to the 
august body he addressed. The Senate, at length, amended the 
treaty so materially as to cause its defeat. The amendments were, 
that the American coast should be excluded from the list of those 
where the search should be allowed; that chartered vessels and 
vessels owned by citizens of either nation should be excluded 



53 

from the class liable to be searched; that the citizens or subjects 
of either party trading under foreign flags should be exempt from 
the penalties of the treaty; and that either party might terminate 
the treaty at any time, on giving six months' notice. 

The latter-day pirates were thus already at a discount. It 
would be interesting to know, how many have paid the fearful 
penalty at the hands of unrelenting philanthropy? The British 
government of course objected to the amendments, and, «s a com- 
promise, had the assurance to propose that the right of search on the 
American coast should be restricted to the coast of the Southern 
States ! The Northern ports were to be free, and the Southern, 
tainted already with the pollution of slavery, were to be under the 
espionage of the despised and hated British flag. The American 
minister at London immediately rejected the proposition, and the 
treaty fell to the ground. A" similar treaty with Colombia met 
the same fate. 

The apparent inconsistency in the course of the Federal Gov- 
ernment, just narrated, it is perhaps well to explain. The resolu- 
tion calling on the Executive to negotiate, with a view of render- 
ing the slave trade piracy under the law of nations, was simply 
declaratory of the individual sentiments of a majority in the House 
of Representatives. Nothing more. But that body, it must be 
remembered, has no voice in the making of treaties, and cannot 
instruct or advise the treaty-power either as to the subject or 
the nature of the stipulations it should enter into. And, with 
however much reason the President may have regarded the reso- 
lution as an expression of the public wish, it could have no oblig- 
atory effect whatever with the Senate, which has the sole power 
of ratifying or rejecting treaties. This apparent inconsistency, 
then, was really nothing more than a difference of opinion 
between the Senate and the House of Representatives, which is 
by no means an unusual circumstance. It was made conspicuous 
in this instance because the President negotiated upon a sugges- 
tion of the House of Representatives, counting "without his 
host" — the Senate. 

This was a critical period in the diplomatic history of the 
United States, and the Senate "deserves well of the country" for 
the wise and statesman-like views which signalized its counsels. 
Unfortunately, these views, with the men who expressed them, 
have departed, and "cabal, intrigue, and corruption,'' now rule 
the day. 

And here it is well to observe, that the forming of alliances 
with foreign powers for the suppression of the slave trade, or for 
any other purpose, is by no means "the settled policy of the 
country," whatever may be said of the abolition of the traffic by 
act of Congress. This is readily substantiated. Among the sub- 
jects proposed in the invitation to our Government to send a mis- 
sion to Panama, was " the consideration of means to be adopted 
for the entire abolition of the African slave trade." The commit- 
tee of the Senate to whom the proposition was referred, reported 



54 

(in 1826) that ^'the United States have not the right, and ought never 
to feel^ the inclination to dictate to others ivho may differ ivith them 
on this subject, (the slave trade,) nor do the c'ommittee see the 
expediency of insulting- other States by ascending the moral chair 
and pronouncing from thence mere abstract principles of the rectitude 
of^ which each nation enjoys the perfect right of deciding for itself." 
This able report was written by Mr. Tazewell, of Virginia; and 
on the comnriittee were, besides him, Mr. Macon, of North Caro- 
lina, Mr. Gaillard, of South Carolina, and Mr. White, of Ten- 
nessee — four of the ablest and most highly respected Senators 
from the South. In defending the report, Mr. White very oppor- 
tunely called attention to the fact, that, in the constitutions of 
some of the republics to be represented at Panama, it was 
declared, "that whoever owns a slave shall cease to be a citizen.'' 
How improper, then, he asked, would it not be to treat with them 
in relation to slavery ? ''Let us cease," he added, " to negotiate upon 
any subject connected with it!" The remark is even more strictly 
applicable to the queen powder of abolition. Great Britain ! Her 
laws also forbid any citizen in any part of the world to own a 
slave. Mr. White uttered a truth far more reaching, perhaps, even 
than he intended. It amounts to apolitical axiom; it indicates a 
policy too evident to be mistaken. Mr. Hayne, of South Carolina, 
urged it in general terms: '' With nothing connected ivith slavery 
can we consent to treat ivith foreign nations!" This should be 
'•' the settled policy of the South." We now see our error in con- 
senting to ''treat" with the Northern States on the subject when 
the federal compact was made, and our error again \n treating 
with England in 1814 and in 1842. The British alliance has pro- 
vision for its own termination; let us break it up. Which of our 
Senators will propose it? 

That "the settled policy of the country" was then adverse to 
a slave-trade-abolition alliance is further evidenced by the note of 
Mr. Clay, when Secretary of State, closing a negotiation with (I 
think) the Melbourne ministry, in which he assures the British 
Government that, "from the views entertained by the Senate, it 
would seem unnecessary and inexpedient any longer to continue 
the negotiation respecting the slave convention, with any hope 
that it can assume a form satisfactory to both parties." And so 
satisfied were all parties of the truth of Mr Clay's conclusion, 
that it was currently announced in the British press more than 
ten years after, and, I may add, currently believed at those Euro- 
pean courts which took any interest in the matter, that " under no 
condition, in no form, and with no restriction, will the United 
States enter into any convention, or treaty, or combined efforts of 
any sort or kind with other nations, for the suppression of this 
trade." This was the prevailing belief in 1886. It was then, 
however, that abolition reared its polluted head with renewed 
vigof in the United States. The British societies established 
branches in New England, and sent preachers to expound their 
doctrines. A new crusade was organized, and all the British 



55 

Government had to do was to wait, until 'Mhe views entertained 
by the Senate" should be changed. This was effectually done in 
six years. And before the close of 1842, the Ashburton alliance 
was a thing accomplished, Southern Senators sustaining it, a full 
conception of which we can now form from the chain of events 
thus briefly narrated. 



No. 14. 



" The Colonies are perishing for want ''The conventions relative to the right 
of sufficient labor. By additional sup- of search have been suppressed. En- 
plies alone can the principle of free gagements entered into since then aban- 
labor in the tropics be vindicated, and a doned. The treaties of 1815, contain- 
real blow struck at the iniquities against ing declarations against the slave trade, 
which we have long declaimed." — Lon- have nothing in common with an emi- 
don Times. gration based on the enfranchisement 

of the slave." — Paris Coji&titution7iel. 

I am induced to believe, fellow Southerners, that there is no 
material difference of opinion among us as to the expediency of 
abrogating the articles in the treaty of Washington relating to the 
slave trade. This proposition is entirely distinct from and inde- 
pendent of the proposition to repeal the acts prohibiting the importa- 
tion of slaves. Let it be remembered that importation was pro- 
hibited thirty-four years before the treaty was thought of, and had 
been declared piracy twenty-two years before. No negroes were 
imported into the United States, and nobody thought of importing 
them at the time; so that in the outset we must distinguish be- 
tween the two propositions. Let us also remember that this 
treaty aims avowedly, literally and exclusively at the prevention 
of the slave trade between foreign countries, and not in this coun- 
try. A mere perusal of the articles, and a general knowledge of 
the state of the trade in 1842, is sufficient to convince any one 
of this. 

Let me, however, on the threshold of this subject, distinctly 
avow the entire absence of any intention or desire either to ques- 
tion or impugn the motives of any American citizen who had any 
official connection either with the negotiation or the ratification of 
the treaty. If Washington, Jefferson and Madison, being mor- 
tal, could for once be in error, as in my first letter I contended 
they had been, surely the statesmen of 1842, illustrious as many 
of them certainly were, could also fall into a blunder, particularly 
in the matter of a treaty with Great Britain whose diplomatists 
are trained to their profession. Look at the Clayton-Bulwer 
treaty ! With my disclaimer thus made in advance, your atten- 
tion is now invited to the following points, which, without being 
formally discussed, are submitted for your consideration : 



#^^' 



56 



The eighth article of the treaty is an experiment. Witness 
Mr. Webster's query to Captains Bell and Paixe, of the navy, 
dated April 30th, 1842, viz: ^'What mtjnber of vessels, and of 
what size and description, it would be necessary to employ on the 
western coast of Africa, in order to put an entire end to the traffic 
in slaves, and for what number of years it would probably be ne- 
cessary to maintain such force to accomplish that purpose'" Also, 
the foot note at page 291, vol. 6, Webster's Works, Boston, 1851, 
edited by himself, viz : a detailed answer was returned, and, 
upon the information which it contained, the eighth article of the 
treaty of Washington was drawn up. Also, the eleventh article 
of the treaty, providing for the termination of the eighth at the 
end of five years. The idea evidently being the same as that en- 
tertained by the British minister in 1823, when he submitted that 
if the policy of allowing a mutual right of search was doubtful, it 
could be adhered to only for a limited time; and the same as that 
actuating the Senate, when the proposed treaty of that year was 
so amended that either party might terminate it' any time on giv- 
ing six month's notice, both of which are mentioned in my last 
letter. 

The experiment has failed. Witness the experience of fifteen 
years, and the evidence of everybody informed on the subject. 

The stipulation entails an unnecessary expense on the country. 
According to Mr. Bexton, in his speech in the Senate (1842) it 
would cost 8720,000 per annum to maintain a force of 80 guns on 
the coast of Africa: this, in fifteen years, would amount to 810,- 
800,000 — a fine sum to ofl^er up on the altar of British philan- 
thropy, while it is considered too great an expense to add a few 
companies to our own army, for the defense of our Indian fron- 
tiers. It was truly said, at the time, '^ We raise 1,000 men for 
foreign service, while reducing our little army at home ! We send 
ships to the coast of Africa, while dismounting our dragoons on 
the frontiers of Missouri and Arkansas ! We protect Africa from 
slave dealers, and abandon Florida to savage butchery ! We cry 
out for retrenchment, and scatter §3,600,000 (five years' cost of the 
African squadron) at one broad cast of the hand !" 

What becomes of the few negroes that chance to fail into the 
hands of a cruiser ? Let the archives of the Navy Department, 
the State Department and the Colonization Society, tell, that we 
may know how many martyrs have been rescued by these 
§10,000,000, and how much they have cost per head. Which of 
our worthy Senators will call for this information ? It requires a 
glance at only fifteen years' files, and a iew clerks can accomplish 
it in a week. 

The alliance certainly was not intended to last forever, and if in 
fifteen years it has not accomplished anything, it never will. It 
is certain, from the whole history of the negotiations on the sub- 
ject, already referred to, that had the alliance been the sole object 
of Lord AsHBURTOx's visit to America, it would not have been rat- 
ified by the Senate, at least with as large a vote from the South, 



57 

as, under the circumstances, it received. It did not pass upon its 
own merits. 

It is, after all, a dodge, a shift from the real issue; and what a 
shift ! Simply the horn of a dilemma. Mr. Webster, the Amer- 
ican negotiator, was candid enough to acknowledge it, in 1843, 
and agam in 1846. "The stipulation,'^ he says, ''was a mode re- 
sorted to which might render unnecessary both the assertion and 
the denial of the right to search." * * * << The whole pro- 
ceeding shows that the object of the stipulation was to avoid such 
differences and disputes as had already arisen.'' It was made to 
avoid "raising the difficulty attending the question of the right of 
search." There can be no doubt of this. The real issue was the 
British claim of a right to search American vessels for the latter- 
day pirates. And the whole scope and object of the eighth article 
was to dodge it, even at an expense of S700,000 per annum, which, 
so far as the settlement of the issue is concerned, is just so much 
hush-money. 

It has not prevented British cruisers from searching and detain- 
ing American vessels on the high seas. Witness the American 
barque Panchita, with an American crew engaged in lawful com- 
merce, seized by the British sloop Sappho and sent to New York 
in charge of a British prize officer and crew ! Also the American 
ship Thomas Watson, laden with palm oil, ivory, gums, hides and 
gold dust, seized by the British steamship Bloodhound, and forci- 
bly carried into the British colony of Sierra Leone in charge of a 
prize crew, for the unpardonable crime of having a negro steward 
on board ! Also the fifty searches recently off our own coast. 
And, as a fit commentary, witnesss the United States Frigate 
Cumberland striking her own colors, and sneaking up behind the 
little Yankee schooner Cortez, avith the British flag at her 
peak ! only to discover that the schooner was a legitimate trader. 
What a settlement of the "right of search!" temporal O 
mores I But can this be true ? Can it be possible that American 
fanaticism is willing to truckle so low under the behests of this 
British alliance ? It surely cannot be the custom with American 
vessels of war to sport the British flag along the coast of Africa. 
There was a- time when the meanest cabin boy would spurn the 
subterfuge. 

But, to proceed. Is this political alliance in keeping with the 
spirit of the Constitution and the established policy of the Gov- 
ernment? It avails nothing to say that it was sanctioned by the 
country ; "there is never so much danger of unconstitutional legis- 
lation as when measures are proposed to which nobody objects." 
It is so with every department of a constitutional government. 
Unanimous consent and constitutional authority are widely differ- 
ent sources of power, whether the act be legislative or diplomatic. 
Besides, then, the fact that the eighth and ninth articles of this 
treaty make up together a political alliance contrary to the settled 
policy of the country, and is based upon the repudiated fallacy 
that " the traffic in slaves is irreconcilable with the principles of 



58 

humanity and justice/^ I submit, with entire deference, that it is 
not constitutional; because the treaty power can derive no au- 
thority to prevent the importation of slaves out 0/ the authority 
granted negatively to Congress so to do. One Congress may pro- 
hibit and the next may permit. One can repeal the act of the 
other. But a treaty, especially an alliance, is an affair between 
foreign powers, and is altogether different in its nature and objects. 
And, further, because the treaty power not only derives no au- 
thority in this case out of the authority granted to Congress, but is 
by that very grant deprived of any authority in the premises, it 
being the admitted doctrine that the treaty and legislative powers 
are not concurrent, that the treaty power is necessarily limited by 
the powers granted to Congress, and that what is intrusted to one 
is withheld from the other. Nor can this alliance result in any 
good, I will not say to the South, but to the United States. It has 
already materially injured Cuba and Brazil, our only two slave- 
holding compeers, whose commerce and prosperity are even more 
valuable to the hireling than to the slave States. 

In addition to all which, let me add, the British Government 
has violated the obvious intention and plain meaning of the treaty. 
Why, at the very time this Glueen power of abolition was nego- 
tiating this alliance, alternately threatening and fawning at the 
Brazilian court, and weaving her treacherous coils at Madrid, re- 
modelling her mixed commissions, and sweeping the infection of 
slavery even from Africa, she was deliberately maturing the 
scheme of a new system of African bondage in her own West 
India Islands ! Who does not remember her futile efforts in 1842 
to obtain " free African emigrants ?" And who among us did not 
rejoice that she again became the victim of her own hypocrisy? 
Yet, even now, she hugs the phantom to her soul, and smiles 
complacently on the ^' Portuguese-African emigrants, who come to 
serve a voluntary apprenticeship of ten years." Boasting, the 
while, that she will yet keep slavery down by inaugurating her 
new system of bondage in the persons of transported Sepoys and 
the captured denizens of Canton. Delhi is to rival Wydah in the 
slave trade. Oude is to outstrip Dahomey ; and, as the Times 
hath it, ''the new hold we shall have on Asia will give facilities 
for doing what we wish." 

England is bent on mischief, if unceasing hostility to African 
slavery in Brazil, Cuba and the South is mischievous. And she 
never will suspend her efforts until they end in trium2:)h or disaster. 
The ''green-eyed monster" is even souring the entente cordiale, and 
she looks askant at her imperial ally across the channel, because 
he has had the good sense at least to try and resuscitate his colo- 
nies with a little African labor, albeit, he honestly pays a price 
for it. Think and say what she may of Louis Napoleon's par 
venue "despotism," he is by far the shrewdest monarch in Europe. 
In spite of his coup d'etat he is entitled to the gratitude of France, 
not only for the care he takes of the empire and the colonies, but 
for his sensible and independent course in other respects. 



59 

But to return from a digression, and to cut my story short. If 
it is not our policy to form political alliances in general, England is 
the very last power on earth with which the South should think of 
forming one in particular. There is no affinity, no assimilation 
between our institutions or our modes or motives of action. Our 
aspirations are not congenial, and we never can be nearer in our 
sympathies. There can be no objection to treaties of commerce 
with her. She buys our cotton and pays for it in goods. She 
makes as much out of us as is reasonable in the way of trade. 
That should suffice. Men trade with each other without any love 
being lost between them; so may nations. Because we sell her 
our cotton it is no reason we should assist her in suppressing Af- 
rican slavery to make room for coolyism. 



No. 15. 



"There can be no doubt that slavery " As it is not among the merchants, 
will once more gain the ascendant un- the mechanics nor the landed propri- 
less we carry out a plan of free labor, etors that we find emigrant laborers 
Our colonies in the West are the field here, so in Africa we do not seek among 
for such a scheme, our empire in the the free, who enjoy a certain degree of 
East may furnish the laborers, and the comfort and authority for laborers will- 
new hold we shall have on Asia will ing to expatriate themselves to work 
give facilities for doing what we wish."' for wages under a foreign climate." — 
London Times. Paris Co7istitutio7inel. 

In concluding the subject of this treatj^, fellow-Southerners, I 
must respectfully add my sincere regret that the negotiators have 
not recorded, in their correspondence, -the exchange of views 
which must necessarily have passed betw^een them before they 
incorporated the 8th, 9th, and 11th articles. The subject matter 
of these articles, as already shown, had been thoroughly investi- 
gated by both goverments twenty years before. And with regard 
to the mere form of negotiation, it may be said to have been re- 
newed in 1842, just where it w-as suspended by Mr. Clay's note 
already cited. 

Lord AsHBURTON reached Washington on the 4th April, 1842, 
and it is to be presumed the matter of the slave trade was dis- 
cussed at an early day thereafter, for w^e find Mr. Webster 
making written inquiries of Naval officers respecting it, before 
the close of the month. But there is some obscurity overshadow- 
ing the particulars in dispute. At one place Mr. Webster says, 
(letter to Gen. Cass, Dec. 20th, 1842,) "The English minister no 
move presented ihis subject for negotiation than the government of 
the United States presented it. Nor can it be said that the United 
States consented to its introduction in any other sense than it may 
be said that the British minister consented to it." From this we 



60 

are to understand, that ^^ this very delicate and important sub- 
ject/' as he terms it, was simultaneously opened by the two nego- 
tiators, or else that the stipulation was the result of propositions 
from one and counter-propositions from the other. It does not ap- 
pear that any other interpretation is to be put upon this statement. 
But Mr. Webster tells us in another letter to Gen. Cass, (Novem- 
ber 14th, 1842,) that the treaty "complies with no demand, 
grants no application, conforms to no request," and "makes no 
concession to England whatever." That "Eng^land did not 
urge the United States to enter into this conventional arrange- 
ment. The United States yielded to no application from Eng- 
land. The proposition for abolishing the slave trade, as it 
stands in the treaty, was an .^mencan proposition ;• it originated 
with the Executive government of the United States, which cheer- 
fully assumes all its responsibility. It stands upon it as its own 
mode of fulfilling its duties, and accomplishing its objects." 

Now es there a contradiction in these two letters? How is it 
" that the United States consented" in no other sense than "the 
British minister consented " according to Mr. Webster's recol- 
lection on the 20th December, while according to his recollection 
on the 14th November, the British minister made no "demand," 
"application," nor "request;" and the alliance was " an Amer- 
ican proposition" upon which the "Executive government" 
stands '' as its own mode o( ful^Wing its duties?" It is difficult 
to understand how any proposition can originate mutually with 
two parties, being also consented to by each in the same "sense," 
when it is positively declared by one of them to originate with 
itself andi to be "its own mode of fulfilling its duties and accom- 
plishing its objects." 

But we have more light from the American negotiator in his 
letter to the President, (26th Feb., 1843,) in which he says, " that 
the engagement entered into by the parties to the treaty of Wash- 
ington for suppressing the African slave trade was unconditionally 
proposed and agreed to." The alliance, then, being "an Ameri- 
can proposition," was unconditionally "proposed" by Mr. Web- 
ster, and, of course, unconditionally "agreed to" by Lord Ash- 
burton with great alacrity. Now w^hat was the necessitj^ for this 
alliance ? As Gen. Cass very truly observes to Mr. Webster, — 
"Till then we had executed our own laws in our own way," but 
now we have "stipulated in a solemn treaty, that we will carry 
into effect our own laws." What a lofty engagement this ! First 
make a law, and then "voluntarily" and "unconditionally" bind 
ourselves to a foreign power to execute it. Thus placing our mu- 
nicipal laws beyond the reach of Congress. Suppose the act of 
1807 and all subsequent to it were repealed, would that abrogate 
the treaties of Ghent and Washington ? If it would not, then we 
would have a treaty and a law in conflict. And which would be 
paramount in this case? If it would, then Congress can, by a 
simple repeal of a few of its acts abrogate a treaty. Truly, for 
the government of a great empire like this, "its own mode of 
fulfilling its duties and accomplishing its objects" is wondrous 



61 

clever^ and when it is remembered that cruisers had been sent to 
Africa ever since the invention of the latter-day pirates it seems 
unprecedentedly so. 

Now, from what has been quoted from Messrs. Monroe and 
PiNCKNEY, it is undeniable that the project of entering into treaty 
stipulations on the subject was from the very first a scheme of the 
British government. And is it not equally unquestionable that 
from the time our government was once fairly committed, by the 
stipulations of 1806 and 1814, the great object of that government 
has been to extort from this a concession, however qualified, of 
the right to search American vessels ? And whether or not Mr. 
Webster proposed the alliance of 1842, it is plain that it resulted 
from the negotiations of previous occasions. What had the Brit- 
ish government ever asked for, down to the arrival of Lord Ash- 
burton, but our co-operation in persuading the other American 
governments to abandon the traffic; and our consent for her cruis- 
ers to search our vessels as the only practical means by which 
her navy could suppress it. There is no other request on the rec- 
ord. But upon what points do the 8th and 9th articles of the 
treaty rest ? Why upon these and these onli/. Do they not then 
treat upon projyositions originally coming from the British govej-nment? 
The ninth article explains itself, and as to the eighth, is it not, in 
spite of its being a dodge of the question of search, palpably and 
confessedly the result of — the expedient to which we were driven 
by — the previous propositions of that government ? Look at the 
chain of events. 

In 1806, Mr. Monroe and Mr. Pinckney are prevailed upon by 
the British ministry, without having instructions from home on the 
subject, to assent to the 24th article of the proposed treaty of 
amity, commerce and navigation. In 1814 a similar stipulation 
is appended to the treaty of Ghent. Our government thus, to 
satisfy the wishes of the BritishCabinet, became committed, first, 
to a participation in a diplomatic combination against slavery in 
all those countries which then depended on the slave trade for a 
supply of labor, and, second, to the mistaken policy of treating 
at all with foreign nations on the subject. What follows ? We 
have no sooner fallen into the snare, hardly as yet enlisted in the 
crusade, before there comes another proposition from London for 
its more efTectual prosecution 1 Within four years after being 
trapped we are called upon to make good our professions by en- 
trusting our commerce to the discretion of the British navy and 
subjecting our vessels to its search. And this, it is useless to 
deny, has been the constant object and ultimatum of British policy 
for forty years 3 — from the first suspected American craft .ever 
searched, down to the seizure of the 'Panchita' and the 'Thomas 
Watson," last year. 

Again, in 1819, the Prince Regent is requested to renew the 
proposition. Impatient of the result, we are summoned anew in 
1823 to accept the proposal or name a better project. The non- 
sensical idea of making the trade piracy under the law of nations 
was thrown out as the great panacea of modern philanthropy, 



62 

only to prove itself a harmless and neglected nostrum. A treaty- 
was finally arranged, and, as we have seen, defeated on account 
of the two governments not agreeing as to the right of search. 

But when the negotiation was terminated by Mr. Clay's note, 
was not the issue narrowed down to the simple question of search ? 
And when it was renewed in 1842 was any other element involved ? 
Did either government doubt the sincerity of the other ? Had 
they not for twenty years past kept a naval force on the African 
coast for the protection of commerce and the enforcement of the 
rights and obligations of their respective flags ? And is any new 
duty imposed upon either government with respect to the enforce- 
ment of its laws? Why, then, in the absence of any mistrust, 
enter into new obligations? The answer in plain English is, to 
2yroduce an efect upon other governments. To intimidate, embarrass 
and injure Brazil and Cuba! The genius of British policy may 
be supposed to have soliloquized thus: — '' The United States have 
prohibited the slave trade and pronounced it piracy. They have 
also had the complaisance to engage with me in frowning it down 
throughout the world. That was well. Half of them being slave 
States, they have no disposition to see slavery abolished in Cuba 
and Brazil. But I, on the other hand, have a strong desire of that 
sort. They too, in going as far as they have, probably think they 
have done penance enough, and their blunted consciences are 
doubtless satisfied. But, I confess, they have not come up to my 
expectations. 1 have a desire to make further use of them before 
they become too powerful for me to manage. Without some sort 
of countenance from them, I shall have difficulty in Brazil and 
Cuba. It is true, I have cajoled the abolition party handsomely, 
and, for that matter, have set the States at loggerheads among 
themselves, and have taught the Cubans and Brazilians to mis- 
trust if not despise them. But there is something still wanting. 
Ah ! I have it : — They are in a dilemma ! I must transfix them 
before they discover it and escape. They call their slavers pi- 
rates ! Pirates they are forsooth! W^ell, am I not the dueen of 
Commerce? The sun never sets on my dominions. Why should 
these yankee pirates build up the sugar, tobacco, and coffee inter- 
ests of Cuba and Brazil while my Empire can supply those arti- 
cles ? This is an outrage upon my well-known sentiments of 
'humanity and justice' which cries aloud for redress. Their 
meddlesome and graceless minister at Paris (Gen. Cass) has 
knocked iny nice quintuple treaty into a cocked hat. But the 
dilemma: — Since their traders are pirates, they cannot demur if 
I capture them, and if I should happen to search a vessel engaged 
in lawful commerce a little damages will settle it, all that can be 
amicably arranged. And if they will not consent to my chasing 
the pirates, I will resolutely insist upon tJtcir doing it. And to 
make the issue, 1 shall at once order my 'Bloodhounds' and 
'Sapphos,' my 'Styxes' and my 'Buzzards,' to proceed with 
their searches, and shall await the result with a perfect assurance 
of success. If they will not acknowledge the right of search, 
they shall at least avoid it, which is after all only a negative way 



6a 

of acknowledging that there is at least some force in my claim. 
Nobody ever dodges at nothing! If I can make them dodge now, 
I shall not be lonff in finding means to hit them. So then it shall 
be." And what was the result ? 

The loner silence which followed the suspension of negotiations 
was broken by the British government putting in practice the 
claim to search our vessels which we had so often denied. Brit- 
ish officers very naturally regarded pirates as outlaws without 
home or country, and very humanely searched for them where 
they were most 'likely to be found; viz: in American vessels. 
Our government took a different view of the matter. These lat- 
ter-day pirates seem to be a sort of private property of the United 
States. We set up to enjoy a monopoly of them. They are 
pirates strictly in an American sense. And why not ? The Pick- 
wickians viewed certain matters in a '' Pickwickian sense !" 
They were only a club. We are a great and harmonious nation 
of republics. Let us then insist upon it that our slaves are all 
plunder, we are all pirates, and that every United States Marshal 
ought to be provided, at the public cost, with a sufficiency of 
hemp to hang us all by the necks — but, only in a ''Pickwickian 
sense." 

But to conclude: — Has not England got by this treaty all she 
wants, except the mere form of an acknowledgment of her right 
to search? She would even prefer our paying for a force of 80 
guns to paying it herself. She has the substance of her wishes ! 
Why only the other day the term of service for which some of 
our sailors had shipped in the African squadron being about to 
expire, they were ordered home, and immediately the British min- 
ister wants to know why there is not the stipulated force on the coast. 
The '' Executive government,'' as Mr. Webster calls it, having 
its memory thus jogged by its august ally for not prosecuting ''its 
own mode of fulfilling its duties," of course made the proper ex- 
planations and assurances. Now, viewing the whole affair from 
first to last, is it not a farce? One, too, for which we, we of the 
/S^ozf/A, pay dearly ? 

The several acts prohibiting the slave trade are municipal laws, 
which cannot require a political alliance with a foreign power for 
their execution. Our government professes to be ''fully able to 
enforce its own laws without the aid of British cruisers,^^ and yet we 
find in the treaty of Washington the most solemn obligations "io 
enforce the law^ Now the treaty power has nothing to do with 
enforcing the laws of Congress. Great Britain nor no other 
Power on earth is to take part in executing them. If, then, these 
laws require '' a provision introduced into a treaty to enforce 
them," they cannot be among those which our government is 
''fully able to enforce," and being consequently inefficient, 
should be repealed. Or if, on the other hand, they do not require 
"a provision introduced into a treaty to enforce them," then 
should that provision be abrogated. With you, intelligent reader, 
I leave the choice. 



64 

No. 16. 

COXCLUSIOX. 

Having now, my countrymen, endeavored to present some of 
the points involved in the great, and as yet unsolved problem of 
African slavery, I will add, in conclusion, a few remarks which 
should have been included in the foregoing letters. 

The policy of not discussing the point, whether a further im- 
portation of slaves from Africa would be beneficial to the South, 
because it is supposed that, however beneficial it might be, it is 
not practicable in the Union, and because it is further supposed 
that such discussion will divide the South, rests by no means upon 
unquestionable grounds. Should nothing be discussed which is sup- 
posed to be impracticable at the time ? Can anything be dis- 
cussed, let it be either practicable or impracticable, which will 
not divide the south? Was the South ever as united as could 
have been desired? Will she ever be? These are questions 
worthy of at least a passing notice. 

Discussion is the great prerogative of a free people, and can be 
dreaded by despots only. It is the sole though rugged road to 
truth. And when it is closed to the people, no surer evidence 
can be (\'anted either of a weak cause or a strong tyranny. An 
effort to prevent discussion is one of the worst omens of a declin- 
ing people; for it is the certain consequence of invaded or aban- 
doned rights, of irresistible oppression or gross imbecility. Noth- 
ing can be said to be proved or established until it is questioned. 
The rightfulness and justice, the humanity and morality, the econ- 
omy and profitableness of slavery itself was never satisfactorily 
established in the Southern mind until they were questioned and 
discussed. It is so also with the adjuncts of slavery. If the South 
will not discuss them, for fear of displeasing a few Northern poli- 
ticians, or of dissolving a union with abolitionists, or of displeas- 
ing individuals at home who can find no other measure for the 
strength of her institutions than the price of her slaves; then is 
there cause to apprehend that there is a weakness pertaining to 
slavery which the South is afraid to have exposed. Secrecy is 
the aim of the wrong doer, and a discussion of his ways is formi- 
dable only to him. There are some also who will or can ^'neither 
be persuaded by argument, nor instructed by experience ;" to 
them of course discussion is useless. But the mass of mankind, 
particularly those livmg under a free government, esteem discus- 
sion to be not only a right, but a duty, which becomes the more 
inestimable and binding the more it is denounced. All great 
principles need frequent discussion, as well that they might re- 
ceive new vitality as that they may be imbibed by succeeding 
generations. Had Luther and Melancthon not discussed the 
principles of Christianity, the Pope of Rome might still have been 
the ruler of the civilized world; and had Hampden^ through fear 



65 

of discussion, acted as the so called "moderate men^' of his day, 
"instead of hazarding his whole fortune in a law suit with the 
crown, he would have quietly paid the twenty shillings demanded 
of him — the Stuart family would probably have continued upon 
the throne, and, at this moment, the imposition of ship money 
would have been an acknowledged prerogative of the British 
crown." 

But it is not the mere discussion or "agitation'^ of this question 
that seems objectionable to some; it is its discussion ivhile in the 
Union! and the ground of objection is, that the importation of 
slaves is impracticable while the Union lasts. There are many 
who do not concur either in these premises or this conclusion. 
Some do not think the importation so impracticable as others sup- 
pose; conceding, though, that it is impracticable, the question 
occurs, what Southern measure is practicable in the Union ? If 
the South must wait for the union to be dissolved before she dis- 
cusses any measure which the North will not probably accede to, 
the question naturally occurs, when and how is the Union to be 
dissolved? A dissolution of the Union is about as impracticable 
a measure, while in the Union, as the importation of slaves, and 
probably much more so. The same rule then which holds in one 
case ought to hold in the other. And the dissolution of the Union 
ought no more to be discussed than the importation of slaves. 
But if the dissolution of the Union is never discussed, it is safe 
to say it will never be accomplished. And if it is never accom- 
plished, then no other measure, which, according to this rule, 
should not be discussed previous to dissolution ever will be except 
through the sufferance of the North. U, therefore, it be sound 
philosophy to discuss nothing which is not unquestionably prac- 
ticable in the Union, it is certain that the proposition not to dis- 
cuss the policy of importing slaves until the Union is dissolved, 
means never to discuss or accomplish either. 

But suppose the principle applies in one case and not in the 
other: that while the slave trade is a sealed subject, the dissolu- 
tion of the Union is a legitimate one of discussion, and will soon 
be accomplished — is it any more defensible? If the Union is to 
be dissolved, is the South to rush blindfold into the experiment 
without discussing and understanding what is to be her policy 
after the Rubicon is passed ? Is it possible that enlightened 
statesmen would sunder the ties which bind them with another 
people without first discussing the policy they are to pursue? 
If the Union is in danger of dissolution, does not that fact alone 
admonish you to discuss and understand the policy you are to pur- 
sue, to compare your interests, to lay down your conditions, to dis- 
cover your friends and prepare for your enemies? We are dis- 
cussing the policy of direct trade with Europe from Southern 
ports, of direct taxation and free trade, the repeal of the naviga- 
tion laws, and other great measures which are scarcely more prac- 
tical in the Union than the slave trade, and the chief benefit to be 

5 



derived from such discussion is the preparation of the Southern 
people for their adoption when, if ever^ the Union is dissolved, for 
to all appearances, we are a subjugated people, conquered by our 
own allies. And for the same reason the discussion of the policy 
of re-opening the slave trade is proper and beneficial. Congress 
and the people have been discussing the admission of a slave 
State, an event which all know never will again occur while the 
Union lasts. It seems at least evident that if nothing is to be dis- 
cussed which the hireling States will not probably accede to, the 
days of Southern independence are numbered. This discussion 
aims at the repeal of certain acts of Congress just as others do, 
and is equally legitimate. 

But, it is said, it will divide the South. This, in no case, can 
hold as a good reason. The South always is and will be divided, 
as all other free people are, upon great questions of interest and 
policy. In the days of the revolution the South was terribly di- 
vided between whigs and tories, and her division was recorded in 
fraternal blood! Every great question since then has divided her 
and will divide her as long as freedom of speech and of the press 
is enjoyed. The proposition is to restore to the South a free 
TRADE IN LABOR — an advantage which all other people in the 
world enjoy saving only the slaveholding countries in America. 
It is to give to the people of each of the Southern States at their 
own discretion power to obtain, as the people of the hireling States 
do, labor from whence they may. And if this reasonable and 
just proposal is to cause a serious rupture among those States, it 
IS of the first importance that the people should know it before the 
Union is dissolved, that the}^ might act understandingly and in the 
full knowledge of the consequences of such dissolution. If, for 
example, Virginia is willing to dissolve the Union only upon con- 
dition that she may have a monopoly of the business of supply- 
ing Texas with slaves, it is but just that Texas should know it be- 
fore she takes the unalterable step and subjects herself anew to 
the monopoly. And if Texas is willing to dissolve the Union 
only because she wants a competition between Virginia and Af- 
rica, it is but just that Virginia should know it before she goes out 
of the Union. So far from these divisions being deprecated they 
are desirable, for it is hardly to be questioned that it is of the 
highest importance to the South to know the discordant elements 
at work within before she assumes the responsibilities and dan- 
gers of a separate republic, rather than wait to discover them 
when the difficulties attending the establishment of a new govern- 
ment may occasion jealousies and embarrassments of vital import 
and disastrous in their consequences. Homogenity of sentiment 
and interest in a confederacy of States is far more essential than 
greatness of numbers if it be accompanied with rivalry and mis- 
trust. It is better, therefore, if the discussion of this question is 
in truth to cause such deep divisions at the South as seem to be 
apprehended, that it be proceeded with before the Union is dis- 



67 

solved, which in the humble opinion of your correspondent, is an 
event which may possibly be further off than the importation of 
Africans. 

Two leading objections to the importation seem to be, first, that 
it will reduce the price of slaves, and thereby destroy a large 
proportion of the capital now invested in slaves; and, second, 
that it will occasion an over production of cotton, and thereby re- 
duce its price and injure the planting interest of the country. 
The latter has already been briefly discussed. In view of the 
former, the proposition has even been called ^^ agrarian." But it 
has already been shown that the price of slaves, or of their pro- 
duce, is not a sure criterion of their permanent value, still less 
can it be of the strength and stability of the institution. Slaves 
sold, during the past winter, at a lower price in South Carolina 
than in any other Southern Slate, but the institution is certainly 
as strong there as in Kentucky, where they sold highest, and the 
slave is equally valuable as a producing agent in the two States. 
In one, the proportion of buyers to sellers happened to be less 
than in the other, and hence the difference in price. South Caro- 
lina and Kentucky are perhaps equally wealthy in proportion to 
population, and the price of slaves, within their respective limits, 
is no evidence of their respective wealth and prosperity. The 
true wealth of a State consists in its capacity to produce, and not 
in the cost of its productive labor. The man who owns one 
thousand acres and fifty slaves, and exports one hundred bales of 
cotton, is certainly doing a better business than his neighbor who 
owns the same amount, but exports only fifty bales; it matters not 
what the land and negroes cost. Supposing the cost the same in 
the two cases, the one makes twice the profits of the other, and is 
by just so much the richer of the two. Or if the difference of 
cost is proportionate with the difference of exports, the profits 
would be equal, but still the former would have double the in- 
come of the latter, and be by just so much the richer of the two. 
But here the parallel, between the individual and the State, ends, 
because if the individual sells his estate, there is likely to be a 
sufficient number of purchasers in the market to give it, through 
their competition, a value in keeping with the income it yield*s; 
whereas the State can never be sold in the sense of the estate, for 
among other reasons, it would find no purchaser, or, if it did, there 
would be no competition, and the price being fixed upon at the 
dictation of the buyer, cannot be expected to bear the same pro- 
portion to the exports of the State, as that of the estate to its ex- 
ports in the case of competition. So that the wealth of a State, 
consisting, as it assuredly does, in its capacity to produce, can be 
measured only by its produce exported, and not by the first cost of 
Its vested interests, nor the quoted price of any of them. This is 
eminently the case with the great land and slave interest at the 
South. The;jnce of our slaves concerns nobody outside of the South- 
ern States, but the price of their produce concerns the whole com- 
mercial world. And the reason is, that the market value of the 



68 

one is only nominal, but of the other is real. Slaves are not 
quotable in the current prices of the day, because they are not in 
the market, a few only beino- occasionally sold to meet liabilities. 
A plantation or farm is not a shop nor a vendue table. The slaves 
thereon are no more in the market than the looms and spindles of 
a factory. They are wanted for use and not for exchange. The 
manufacturer likes to buy his machinery and his labor at a low 
price, and so does the planter or the farmer, if he knows his own 
interest. It seems, then, not to be a truth, that a reduction in the 
price of slaves, resulting from an importation of Africans, would 
occasion a loss to the interest vested in slaves, the price being 
nominal, and slaves not being slock in trade bought to be sold. 
Such a reduction in fact must alwaj^s be a consequence as well as 
a cause; it must result from the price of produce and from the 
proportion of sellers to buyers. The price of slaves has certainly 
risen of late years; is the institution any stronger? But a word 
as to the idea that the importation of slaves is an agrarian meas- 
ure. 

It is contrary to the whole course and tenor of these letters, fel- 
low-countrymen, to advert particularly to cotemporaries, either in 
argument or for illustration^ but, on this point, I am induced 
briefly to depart from the rule. Agrarianism and abolitionism are 
terms which Southern men have a dislike to, and when used in 
connection with Southern measures, must indicate at least warm 
opposition. In a speech recently made at the Southern Conven- 
tion, a gentleman from Virginia is represented as saying — 

"And for what purpose is this incalculable destruction of value and property 
recommended 1 To enlarge the basis of slavery; in other words to propitiate the 
non-siaveholding class by giving them an interest in the institution. And what 
is that but agrarianism in the worst and most otlensive form ? The proposition is, 
that the planter shall consent to a reduction of twenty, thirty, fifty, or seventy-five 
percent, from the value of his property and the yield of his capital, in order that 
the poorer classes in the community may obtain an interest in slavery. Why 
not leave slave property and slave production at their present figure^ and exact from 
the slave-oivner a bonus of so much for the benefit of the non-slaveholder ? Why not 
effect the robbery in kind, and by the simple operation of force ^ transfer a negro from 
the rich man'' s plantation to the poor man^s hovel'? The propositions are identical 
in principle and stibstance, and the difference between them is a difference in candor 
and directness. Worse still, the policy of the gentleman is practical abolitionism ; 
for, if you may destroy the half or the fourth of the value of negro property in 
the interest of the community, you may destroy bis entire value upon the same 
decent pretext." 

There is more in this paragraph to be regretted than the ab- 
sence of logic: it evinces a warmth which it is to be hoped will 
pass away. If the importation of slaves is agrarianism, robbery 
and abolitionism now, it probably will not be denied that it was 
such when it existed in former years, and if this be so it follows 
that agrarianism, robbery and abolitionism are the foundation of 
slavery, for, without the importation of slaves, nothing can be 
plainer than that slavery would never have been introduced into 
this country. The terms are harsh, to say the least of them, and 
much to be regretted, particularly as coming from Virginia, which 
is said to be the slave-breeder for the South. I shall endeavor to 



69 

illustrate the mistake by applying the argument to Virginia 
instead of Africa, not with a view to retort: far be it from your cor- 
respondent, but to put it to the test of experience. If it be true 
that the importation of slaves from Africa into Texas amounts to 
extractins" from the Texas slave-owner a bonus for the benefit of 
the Texas non-slaveholder, or to forcing "a negro from the rich 
man's plantation to the poor man's hovel," it must be true of such 
importation from any other country, and if it be true of any other 
country it must be true of Virginia. But if it be true in the case 
of Virginia and Texas, it must be true with respect to any two 
.other States, and with respect to all the Slates. And, if this be 
so, the inter-State slave trade is upon the same footing with the 
African, except that under the existing monopoly the bonus in one 
case is given by the poor man to the Virginia trader, and in the 
other, as is contended, by the rich man to the poor man. If there 
is any choice, the latter is certainly preferable, for the rich man 
is better prepared to give the bonus than the poor man, albeit his 
goes to Virginia. But there is no bonus in the affair, nor agra- 
rianism nor abolitionism. The question viewed from this point is 
neither more nor less than one of FREE TRADE ! 

The agrarian laws of Rome, from which the modern exagger- 
ated idea of agrarianism is derived, can find no possible parallel 
in the repeal of the anti-slave trade laws of this country. Cicero 
describes them as driving people from their possessions, as taking 
money from one man to give to another, and as not suffering every 
man to retain his own. They applied to the granting of lands, 
and not to their price, nor to the buying and selling of them. 
Now suppose the slave trade re-opened, will a single citizen of 
the United States have a slave or a dollar taken from him? It is 
said that the planter will experience a reduction in ''the value of 
his property and the yield of his capital." This is conjecture 
sufficiently extravagant, and I believe wholly erroneous, but, for 
the sake of argument, it may be admitted. The postulate then 
is, that to import slaves will reduce the value of those already in 
the country, and the yield of capital vested in them, and hence is 
agrarianism ! If this is true of slaves, there is no reason why it 
should not be true of other property; for, it must be observed, 
this assumption rests only upon the consideration that slaves are 
property. If, then, it be true, that to repeal one law which affects 
the price of one sort of property, is agrarianism, it must be true 
with respect to any other law which affects the price of some 
other description of property. And if the repeal of a protective 
or prohibitory law affecting one description of property will reduce 
its value and its yield, and thereby injure the interests vested in 
and dependent upon such property, the repeal of another law 
affecting similarly some other sort of property, must be equally 
injurious to interests vested therein. Now there are many laws 
which protect vested interests in the United Slates which the 
South is eager to repeal. But according to the doctrine of this 
postulate, it would be ''agrarianism in the worst and most offens- 



70 

ire form," to repeal the tax on imports and resort to direct taxa- 
tion, or to repeal our navigation laws, because the interest vested 
in manufactures, mining, and the coasting trade, would experi- 
ence a reduction in value and yield. 

It is truly observed in the excellent report recently submitted 
to the House of Representatives, on the subject of free trade, 
(report of Mr. Boyce, of So. Ca.,) that, ^'the los^ical consequence 
of protection is prohibition. If it is unAvise to buy from the for- 
eigner because his product is only 20 per cent, cheaper than the 
home product, then it is unwise to buy from him though it were 
1000 per cent, cheaper." Protection and prohibition differ only 
in degree, not in essence or principle, so far as they affect the 
price, or value or yield of any sort of property, slaves not ex- 
cepted. Any argument which applies to free trade in cotton 
fabrics, iron ware, or any property of foreign manufacture or 
growth, applies to free trade in slaves of foreign growth, I will 
cite, therefore, some of the undeniable propositions of this report 
as true respecting the importation of slaves as of any other 
property. 

" Every American citizen ought to have the privilege to buy ships (slaves) 
v.'herever he can buy them to the best advantage. To compel him to buy from 
American ship-biiilders (American slave breeders or traders) at an enhanced 
price is, to the extent of that enhanced price, to confiscate his property, and 
transfer it to another. Such a monopoly is utterly inconsistent with the spirit of 
our institutions. Our ship-builders (slave-traders) have a right to equality; they 
have no right to exclusive privileges. As a question of expediency, it seems 
equally indefensible. Either American built ships (American born slaves) are 
cheaper or dearer than foreign built (born.) If they are cheaper, they do not 
need this prohibition of foreign purchase. If they are dearer, they do not deserve 
it. It is the interest of the great mass of the people of the United States, both 
producers and consumers, to have ships (slaves) cheap, for the price of ships 
(slaves) enters as an element in the cost of transportation (production.) This 
monopoly either makes ships (slaves) dearer, and enhances the cost of transport- 
ation (production,) or it is useless. If it makes ships (slaves) dearer, and en- 
hances the cost of transportation (production,) it should be abolished. If it 
accomplishes nothing, it is useless, and should not encumber the statute books." 

'•The doctrine of free trade, or, as it may more comprehensively be called, free 
exchanges, rests upon the great principle of justice. Every individual has a right 
to use his labor (or capital) in the manner most to his own advantage, provided 
he violates the right of no other person. Individuals cannot enjoy this right ef- 
fectually, unless they are permitted to exchange the fruits of their labor to the 
best advantage. Government, therefore, has no right to interfere by 'protective or 
lirohibitory duties, (or laws) and compel one portion of the community to ex- 
change the fruits of their industry, their products, with another class of the com- 
niunity on less advantageous terms than they could exchange them with ibreign- 
ers. For instance : Government cannot rightfully, by protective duties, (or laws) 
compel the wheat growers of Ohio, (cotton growers of Alabama) to exchange 
their wheat (or money) for a less value of goods manufactured in New England, 
(a less number of slaves raised in Virginia) than they could obtain by exchange 
with English manufactures, (importing from Africa.) To do so, is to commit 
a spoliation on the wheat growers of Ohio, (cotton growers of Alabama) for the 
benefit of the New England manufacturers, (Virginia slave sellers.) To the de- 
gree that these wheat growers, (cotton growers) are compelled by such protect- 
ive duties (or prohibitory laws) to exchange their products for a -less value, 
(less number of slaves) to that extent a spoliatioji is co?nmiftediipo?i thefri." 

'' The practical working of the protective policy (or prohibitory laws) is this : 
imposition of high duties on those foreign products (preventing the importation of 
•foreign slaves) which come in competition with home products, (home slaves) 
so as to compel the consumers, (buyers) to purchase the home products (slaves) 



71 

at enhanced prices. The first fact which arrests our attention from this state- 
ment is, that the foreign products (slaves) are furnished cheaper than the rival 
home products, (slaves) as othervv^i^e there would be no use for the high duties, 
(or prohibitory laws.) The practical effect of this, then, is, that the consumers, 
(buyers) are prevented, by governmental interference, from buying cheap. This 
seems to be a very singular effect for government to aim at, because individual 
iLHxdom always svggests the idea of hvyivg chea'p. All men of ordinary sagacity, 
in the management of their private affairs, invariably endeavor to bny cheap. In- 
dividuals who would act upon a different principle would be considered fit sub- 
jects for a commision de lunatice inquirendo. Now, it is very strange that laws 
should be made by government to prevent men buying cheap. Ifitbetuisefor in- 
dividuals to buy cheap, why is it not wise for the whole nation to buy cheap V 

It may be said that these and similar arguments apply to for- 
eign manufactures, but not to foreign slaves, because manufac- 
tures are consumed by everybody, but slaves are purchased only 
by some. This objection, however, is evidently without force. 
No one description of manufactures is consumed by everybody. 
No one description of property is bought by everybody, and the 
same principle which demands free trade in one, demands it in 
all. Viewing the question, then, from this point, it is hardly cor- 
rect to say that to import slaves is agrarianism. It should always 
be remembered that the slave trade was abolished not for the sake 
of keeping up the price of slaves, but because it was thought to be in 
violation of " the principles of humanity and justice," that its 
suppression would promote the abolition of slavery. The effect of 
the prohibition, it is true, lias been to enhance the price of slaves, 
but if free trade in slaves is agrarianism because it will reduce 
this enhanced price to that resulting from a natural competition, 
then is free trade in cotton and woolen manufactures agrarianism, 
because it will reduce their price to the level of a fair competition. 
To seek competition, to repeal protective or prohibitory laws, to 
establish free trade, takes nothing from one man to give to 
another, and is not agrarianism. 

Nor is it '' abolitionism.^' To increase is not to abolish. If the 
slave trade is abolitionism, what a singular and general oversight 
abolitionists of every grade have been guilty of in opposing it I 
To cheapen the price of property is generally to increase the 
number of property owners and the quantity of property. This 
is true of slaves, and to increase the number of slaves and of 
slaveholders in the country can hardly be to abolish slavery. 

And now, my countrymen, I bid you adieu. As many of you 
as have been patient enough to follow me in these crude sugges- 
tions will do well to ponder them seriously. If anything I have 
written is fallacious, disprove and reject it; but what is true, I 
conjure you to receive and acknowledge freely and fearlessly. 
Though unknown to you, I am identified in all respects with you. 
My children and your children have the same interests, the same 
destiny; they will have the same heritage, the same enemies, the 
same friends. Let them not be reared up under the delusive sen- 
timents and false philanthropy which have so long overshadowed 
us. To remove a prejudice is difficult at best, but to avert the 
consequences of an actual mania, which has raged on both sides 



72 

of the Atlantic for nearly a century, is formidable indeed. Yet, I 
have hopes, almost a conviction, that the singular fanaticism 
which has so effectually disturbed our tranquility, and not only 
threatened but impaired our prosperity, has lived its appointed 
time, and must soon succumb to reason and truth. We, of the 
South, are only awakening to a full sense of our duty, and a clear 
perception of our position. The progress of opinion in the last 
ten years has done much to redeem us from a fictitious degrada- 
tion, which our own supineness has strangely tolerated; who can 
tell what the next ten will accomplish ? But what are ten years 
in the career of a great people? A lifetime is not vainly spent if 
it removes a prejudice, or corrects an error, which is hurtful to our 
country or entails dishonor upon our posterity. I, for one, shall 
devote my brief span to the righteous cause of country and of 
truth, regardless of present opposition, whatever be its form, for, 
looking steadily beyond, I see the bright sun of victory rising to 
irradiate and enliven a regenerate and disenthralled South. 

EDWARD B. BRYAN. 



LETTER TO THE SECRETARY OF STATE.^ 



To the Hoii. Lewis Cass, Secretary of State : 

Sir : Ministers of State are more frequently the injured subjects 
of obloquy than the meritorious recipients of laudation, so prone 
is the press to fault-findinof and so perverse are the times. This 
must enhance the meed of praise, of itself never unwelcome, how- 
ever humble its source; and perhaps your observation has as- 
sured you that obscurity is not always an evidence of want of 
sincerity or discernment. It shall, therefore, be my pleasing task 
to point out one of your recent measures as a crowning chaplet to 
a long career of useful consistency and lofty purpose. My zeal 
shallbe curbed by reflection, and my appreciation of measures 
shall not merge into the flattery of men. 

It was the remark of a distinguished writer of the last century 
that '< a generous nation is grateful even for the preservation of its 
rights, and willingly extends the respect due to the oflice of a 
good prince into an affection for his person." A free people are 
ever awake to the encroachments of a foreign power, and sternly 
rebuke the counsels which timidly permit them, but they too fre- 
quently overlook the wise precautions which prevent them. The 
conquering general is publicly honored for performing no more 
than his duty in the field, while the minister is often forgotten, 
though a like performance of duty in the cabinet may have caused 
an enemy to succumb, and saved his country from war. The 
field and the cabinet each aflxDrd opportunities for evincing the 
highest order of genius, but in such cases it will generally be 
found that the aim is aggressive — the object is something more 
than " the preservation of rights ;" it is rather to trench upon the 
rights of others. Washington displayed not half the military 
genius in defending America that Bonaparte did in conquering 
Europe ; but the one, by merely defending the rights of his coun- 
try, made success sure and permanent, while the other, by invad- 
ing the rights of others, staked those of his own country on the 
issue of battle. 



*This letter, originally published in the Richmond South, is appended to the 
foregoing- (with a few notes and additions) as a further exposition of the subject 
treated in some of them. 



74 

Now, sir, I ascribe to you no more than a faithful performance 
of duty, in a manner dictated by long experience and enlightened 
judg-ment. You have done no more (if as much) than vindicate 
the inviolability of your country's flag- upon the high seas. And 
though this is only, as yet, upon paper, it is very much more than 
some of your predecessors could ever bring themselves to attempt. 
Their timidity imparts to you the aspect of a boldness which, 
your candor will admit, is only the result of contrast. Neverthe- 
less, the errors of the past are incentives to a better policy for the 
future, and the country now looks to you, in an especial manner, 
for that triumphant vindication of its flag which has been so long 
needed. The American people read in your antecedents the 
gratification of their wishes in this particular. 

Your own convictions cannot fail to admonish you that the time 
is now come when the British claim of the right to search, and 
the trumpery of ''visitation/' should be definitely settled. Events 
have transpired within a few years, abuses have been perpetrated 
and ofl^enses committed, which cannot honorably be submitted to, 
and which, if persisted in, must result in worse consequences than 
may be anticipated, and certainly worse than can be desired. If, 
then, your efforts avert these consequences, by forever putting at 
rest this daring system of outrage, your name will descend to pos- 
terity, embalmed in the praises of your countrymen and honored 
by every student of your country's history. 

When neither shame nor fear restrains the headlong policy of 
an arrogant government, the injured parties might well despair, 
were it not for the ultimate certainty of its bringing defeat upon 
itself. Nature has generously provided a concomitant retribution 
for every great national wrong. What, then, may not be in store 
for the British Empire ? 

It is doubtless your own opinion, as it is certainly that of many 
other distinguished American statesmen, that the British govern- 
ment is not only the most aggrandizing and aggressive in the 
world, but is deservedly the most destitute of the sympathy of 
other nations. England's immense commerce may preserve peace 
to her in many cases where war would be justifiable, but it only 
fills the void occasioned by the absence of all political affinity. 
Her boasted ally across the channel, in spite of his frequent visits, 
is not enamored of the soil which feeds his assassins, nor of the 
people who contrived the charnel-house of his uncle. The secret 
feelings of France will find utterance only when the debt of 
Waterloo is cancelled. Austria, you know, could not be induced 
to sit down before Sebastopol, and Russia will not soon forget the 
alliance. Turkey declines surrendering Perim, and even Spain 
has refused to destroy the industry of Cuba. As to her "cousins 
across the sea," — as the people of this Republic are so com- 
plaisantly styled, — you are aware that your predecessor was put 
to the necessity of informing a British Minister and two of his 
Consuls that their departure from the country would be a public 
gratification 3 their want of good manners, fair dealing, and even 



75 

ordinary respect for our laws, having ceased to be tolerable. It is 
true, British philanthropy finds imitative partisans in America; 
bin where is it that the Devil is without imps? While, indeed, 
Americans cannot but emulate the skill, energy and greatness of 
England m the arts of peace, they heartily contemn her hypocrisy 
and^see nothing in her audacity either to fear or admire. Having 
twice crossed weapons with her, we know the temper of her steel 
even. better than the duplicity of her schemes, and have fewer ap- 
prehensions of the one than the other. Her faith is the sport of 
pretext. But, sir, to my subject. 

It is the hope of your countrymen that whatever internal diffi- 
culties and embarrassments may impair the harmony of the 
Union, the President and yourself, if not his entire Cabinet, intend 
to inaugurate a more mature and consistent foreign policy than 
has heretofore guided our diplomatic intercourse; and you are 
both reputed to be not altogether blinded by the glare of British 
pretensions. With regard, then, to the question of " the right of 
search'' or " visitation," growling purely out of our stupid and im- 
politic efforts to suppress the slave trade not only in the United 
States, but throughout the world, allow me to call attention to some 
of the points involved, not with the hope of presenting any views 
which you have not already scanned, but that the merits of the 
question maybe recalled to the recollection of the people — a people, 
sir, not only free, but proud and sensitive. How dear to each of them 
is the honor of his country's flag ! How^despised the officer who 
would lower it in disgrace ! How loved the man who bears it 
above reproach ! More than all, how sacred the duty to punish 
its offenders ! 

''To permit a foreign officer to board the vessel of another 
power, to assume command in her, to call for and examine her 
papers, to pass judgment upon her character, to decide whether 
she is navigated according to law, and to send her in, at pleasure, 
for trial, cannot be submitted to by any independent nation with- 
out injury and dishonor. The United States deny the right of the 
cruisers of any power whatever, for any purpose whatever, to 
enter their vessels by force in time of peace." Such is the plain 
English addressed by you to the British minister in your recent 
correspondence, and, sir, it is the language of every American 
heart. But let me remind you that the same thing has been said 
before — with what effect you very well know. Better results are 
hoped for now. For more than forty years the British govern- 
ment has been either exercising or urging the concession of, at 
least a limited right of search, which our government has inva- 
riably refused to grant. The records of the State, Navy and 
other Departments, will afford you ample evidence of the manner 
in which our refusal has been respected. I will not fatigue you 
with instances ; the more recent ones to which public attention 
has been directed are sufficient. But witness the defiant tone of 
a government whose pliancy to interest is only surpassed by its 
disregard of right and law. 



76 

After the repeated denials of the right to search, or even visit, 
recorded in messages and despatches from the American Executive 
and his Secretaries — in spite of Mr. Peel's declaration in Parlia- 
nient, when he was the first minister of the Crown, that "the 
right of search, with respect to American vessels, we entirely and 
utterly disclaim" — in the teeth of Lord Aberdeen's repeated dis- 
avowals of any claim of right to "search American vessels in 
time of peace, '^ and his assurance that " the British cruisers are 
not instructed to detain American vessels under any circumstances 
whatever" — it turns out that vessels bearing the American flag are 
required, by instructions to British cruisers, to be " visited^' in 
cases of " s^rave suspicion^' and "well founded doubt of the gen- 
uineness of the flag-," the requisite amount of suspicion and doubt 
being necessarily determined by the British officer in each case. And 
after the treaty of Washington is ratified in the hope and upon 
the assurance that the question of search would be practically ob- 
viated, Mr. Fox, the British minister at Washington, is provided 
with a despatch designed to correct a statement in our President's 
messao-e, and to inform our government that Great Britain had 
not and would not recede "from the principle which she has con- 
stantly asserted;" that the British government "still maintained 
and would exercise, when necessary, its own right to ascertain 
the genuineness of any flag which a suspected vessel might bear," 
that if loss should be sustained, reparation would be afforded; 
"but that it should entertain, for a single instant, the notion of 
abandoning the right itself, would be quite impossible." As de- 
fined by Sir Charles Wood in the House of ( 'ommons, (afterwards 
Chancellor of the Exchequer) — "the claim of this country is for 
the right of our cruisers to ascertain whether a merchant vessel is 
justly entitled to the protection of the flag which she may happen 
to have hoisted," and as Lord Palmerston adds, ^' is navigated 
according to law." Monstrous claim ! 

Now, sir, no one knows better than yourself how conclusively 
Mr. Webster showed, in his despatch to Mr. Everett (March, 
1843) the means by which alone this ascertainment can be efl^ected. 
The name of search is changed for that of visitation. But how is 
the vessel to be visited ? "Her right to the free use of the ocean 
is as perfect as that of any other ship." She is not "bound to lie 
by or wait the approach of any other ship." What but force, or 
the threat or fear of force, can stop her? Visitation then, if a 
right, is founded on force, and is as purely a belligerent right as 
search. Suppose the vessel refuses to stop on her voyage at the 
order of a British cruiser, as she clearly has a right to. Mr. 
Webster asks, "is force to be used? and if used, may it be law- 
fully repelled?" What will be the nature of the offense? Which 
party will have committed offense? If it be said the cruiser mis- 
took the American vessel for a piratical one, (and no other de- 
scription of vessels can lawfully be stopped on the high seas in 
time of peace, except for some particular offense or under some 
particular treaty) the angwer is plain — self-defense justifies the 



77 

repelling of force bv force. It is a principle everywhere acknowl- 
edged and never to be questioned, that ^' the privilege of self- 
defense exists against an assailant who mistakes the object of his 
attack for another whonn he had a right to assail." The right (so 
called) of visitation, then, is unfounded either in natural or inter- 
national law. There can be no distinction between visitation and 
search in point of right and but little in point of fact, and the rea- 
son is plain. What is the object of visitation? Lord Aberdeen 
says it is to ascertain the nationality of the vessel, the genuine- 
ness of the flag, and Lord Palmerston adds, to see if she is law- 
fully navigated. How are these points to be determined ? The 
papers and log books must be demanded and perused, the crew 
must be mustered and inspected, and her cargo and equipment 
must be examined. If this is not search, will you have the good- 
ness to interrogate Lord Napier on the subject T"^ In thus address- 
ing so distinguished an opponent of this system of British out- 
rage as yourself, my only regret is that your letter to M. Guizot, 
French Secretary for Foreign Affairs, which frustrated the quin- 
tuple league, has been misplaced and is out of my reach. The 
minister, however, who so clearly revealed the truth to Europe 
sixteen years ago, cannot forget its importance to America now, 
and needs no reminding. No one, sir, has more consistently and 
faithfully combated this pretension of an insatiable power, nor 
could you desire a better opportunity to verify your faith by works. 
Finis coronal opus. 

But, sir, leaving the naked question of visitation, let us view it as 
it is involved in the treaty of Washington. This ill-advised and un- 
fortunate treaty, you remember, never received your approbation. 
I have not forgotten the satisfaction enjoyed when I first read your 

*The London Post observes : — " The British government has lately changed its 
tactics by placing cruisers around the island of Cuba, to intercept homeward and 
outward bound slavers. Now it unfortunately happens that the men who engage in 
the slave-trade are not very scrupulous in the use of articles which they hope will 
screen their vessel from tlie examination of a foreign cruiser. A slaver, manned 
by the vilest scum that can be picked up in the Portuguese ports on the coast of 
Africa, will hoist, just as it suits its purpose, the English, French, or the Ameri- 
can flag, and truth compels us to add, that vessels of this kind have been some- 
times owned and commanded by United States citizens. How, then, can it be 
possible to ascertain the nationality of any vessel sailing to or from a suspected 
slave mart, except by the exercise of that right of visitation and search, which, 
in reality, is as necessary a measure of high maratime police as that rule of pub- 
lic law which declares that pirates may be seized and punished wheresoever 
found." 

And says the London Telegraph: — " We cannot abandon the right of search in 
reference to America without abandoning it as regards the rest of the world; we 
cannot recall our Gulf cruisers without establishing an African squadron j we 
cannot suppress our ocean police without again licensing, practically, if not 
avowedly, that slave traffic which has been the curse of one mighty continent 
and the reproach of another. But, at the same time, if it be really essential in 
order to maintain this principle, that American ships should be treated as we are 
led to believe by the reports in the transatlantic journals, we maybe assured that 
we must give way or fight for our prerogative. « * * America has entered 
into treaties with Great Britain for the suppression of this infamous barter, so far 
as the sea is concerned. We have a right, then, to capture and confiscate every 
slaver, and even to punish the captains and crews." 



78 

objections many years ago; it would have grown into admiration 
upon the perusal of your recent correspondence, were it not for a 
slight inconsistency to which I will presently call your attention. 
Judging then from the high and impregnable ground you took in 
3''our letter to M. Guizot, and remembering the general approval 
It received in this country, as well of the people as the adminis- 
tration, 1 do not suppose your opinions can have materially 
changed since ihe close of your official residence at Paris. Allow 
me to mention a few. 

In your despatch to Mr. Webster of the 3d October, 1842, 
after informing him of your having conveyed to the French Gov- 
ernment an official announcement of the ratification of the treaty 
of Washington, you observe: "In executing this duty, I felt too 
well what was due to my Government and country to intimate my 
regret to a foreign Power that some declaration had not preceded the 
treaty, or some stipulation accompanied it, by which the extraordinary 
pretension of Great Britain to search our ships at all times and in 
all places would have been abrogated as equally incompatible with the 
law of nations and with the independence of the United States.'' 
The effect of the treaty, you add, was " to render it obligatory 
upon us, by a convention, to do what we have long done volun- 
tarily, to place our municipal laws, in some measure, beyond the 
reach of Congress." In a subsequent despatch you write : *' I 
never mentioned that our Government had conceded to that of 
England the right to search our ships. My difficulty is not that 
we have made a positive concession, but that we have acted unad- 
visedly in not making the abandonment of this pretension a previous 
condition to any conventional arrangement upon the general sub- 
ject." In the negotiation of a treaty, you justly remark, "topics 
are omitted or introduced at the discretion of the negotiators, and 
they are responsible, to use the language of an eminent and able 
Senator, ' for what it contains and what it omits.' This treaty, in 
my opinion, omits a most important and necessary stipulation ; and 
there/ore, as it seems to me, its negotiation, in this particular, was 
uy fortunate for the country.'" 

Ii must be remembered that previous to the negotiation a cor- 
respondence hkd for one or two years been kept up between the 
agents of the two Governments •• respecting certain seizures and 
detentions of American vessels on the coast of Africa by armed 
British cruisers, and, generally, respecting the visitation and 
search of American vessels by such cruisers." The question was 
squarely and fairly before the parties to the treaty and should 
then have been settled rather than " avoided." So well founded 
is your objection in this particular that Mr. Webster confessed 
to you, "it may be true that the British pretension leads necessa- 
rily to consequences as broad and general as your statement." 
And you know he was apprehensive lest the publication of your 
opinions might afford sutlicient authority for the British Govern- 
ment hereafter to " found new claims or set up new pretensions,'' 
not being able, as he urged, to foresee "how far England might 



79 

hereafter rely on your authority for your construction favorable to 
her own pretensions, and inconsistent with the interest and honor 
of the United States/' This apprehension must have been 
groundless if your opinions were unfounded. Time has partly 
confirmed the apprehension, inasmuch as the British Government 
has put a construction upon the avoidance of the issue quite incon- 
sistent with the honor of the United States, though by no means 
upon "i/oi/r authority y' and thus your predictions are wholly 
verified. Your objection goes to the heart of the affair, 

AND, YOU WILL ADMIT, IS AS FORCIBLE NOW AS EVER. Under the 

circumstances the treaty ^^was unfortunate for the country.'' But 
the evil is not without remedy. Can you think of none 't 

Treaty obligations are too solemn and binding to be lightly set 
aside, and national faith should be as sacred as private honor. 
But when cause can be shown why such obligations should be 
cancelled, national honor, as well as interest, may sometimes 
require their prompt abrogation. The country is now anxious for 
the repeal of the Clayton-Bulwer treaty, for the reason that it 
was not only a grave error in diplomacy, but has been willuUy 
and injuriously misconstrued by the British Government. A sim- 
ilar feeling exists in relation to certain stipulations in the treaty 
of Washington. Whether it can be shown that there has been 
any palpable breach of faith with regard to them, need not now 
be discussed. You have acknowledged their failure.* A fact 
long and sufficiently known to the people of the United States 
who feel that there has been not only error at home but a dis- 
position to bully their flag abroad. They now claim at the 
hands of their government, a redress of wrongs and a prevention 
of their recurrence. Sir, you may be assured they will be con- 

* This failure has been acknowledged in Parliament for more than ten years, 
and is now undenied by the British people and press. The following extract from 
a leading London paper is a fair expression of the truth of the case : 

"The truth is, that the forcible "prevention of slave trading is practically a 
failure. 

"The conduct of our government and our squadron has not been such as to 
conciliate agreement in the matter of our late demands, it would need a volume 
to detail all the ins and outs of our present crooked system of forcible preven- 
tijn. Exeter Hall, and Exeter Hall .statesmen, think only of the negro, and of 
the circumstances which immediately allect him, and while this is the case there 
is only the old, short-sighted philanthropy to be looked for in those directions. 

••Tiiis philanthropy is weak to contend again.st the active influence of the cor- 
rupt vested iuteres'ts which have grown up under anti-slavery. The commander 
of every preventive ship naturally hopes that every vessel he sights upon the 
coast of Africa may turn out to be a " prize ; " the agent, consular or otherwise, 
desires to perpetuate the present system, which makes liis place what it is, and 
the British merchant would rather wink at slaving, than have America compete 
in the -'legitimate" palm trade. Tt would not be difficult to prove from facts 
how little able this philanthropy is to control the warlike and diplomatic machin- 
ery which acts in the name of Exeter Hall on the west coast of Africa, but so 
acts as to hinder the genuine trade, and absolutely to Ibster the slave trade. 
Two facts bearing upon these points are patent: first, f^'^ excessive persexiition of 
shipmasters engaged in legitimate traffic, whose vessels are detail? ed under false 
charges of slave-dealing, or carried far out of their course for the purpose of sub- 
niitting them to inquiry ; secondly, tlte jiractice of our officers to wink at the early 
stages of tlie traffic, hi order that the trading ships may start tvith slaves on board, 
such prizes being enhanced by the head-money given for every slave captured.^'' 



^ 80* 

tent with no temporising policy nor undecisive measures. While 
reposing great confidence in your sagacity and firmness, " they 
have too much understanding and spirit to accept of an indirect 
satisfaction for a direct injury/' This sentiment is now upper- 
most in the American heart: "Injuries may be atoned for and for- 
given, but insults admit of no compensation.'' It is the general 
hope that you at least will disdain the wavering hesitations which 
have too frequently disfigured the course of your predecessors, 
and which by failing either to satisfy the people, or to defend 
their flag, has only excited their disgust and forfeited their pity. 
When the British Government determined to send Lord Ash- 
BURTON to Washington to negotiate with Mr. Webster for the set- 
tlement of all dispute between the two countries, the question of 
search was certainly in contemplation; and when the Senate «-ati- 
fied the treaty, it was with the understanding that American ves- 
sels were thereafter not to be visited or searched by British cruis- 
ers, and the eighth article was not expected to continue of force 
more than five years. A correspondence had been pending be- 
tween Lord Palmerston and Mr. Stevenson respecting the visit- 
ation, search, seizure and detention of our vessels. You also had 
entered a formal protest on behalf of your government, against 
the measures proposed in the quintuple treaty ; and the President 
had said, in a message to Congress, that "However desirous the 
United States may be for the suppression of the slave trade, they 
cannot consent to interpolations into the maritime code, at the 
mere will and pleasure of other governments. We deny the 
right of any such interpolation to any one, or all the nations of 
the earth, without our consent. We claim to have a voice in all 
amendments of that code; and when we are given to understand, 
as in this instance, by a foreign government, that its treaties with 
other nations cannot be executed without the establishment and 
enforcement of new principles of maritime policy to be applied 
without our consent, we must employ a language neither of equiv- 
ocal import, nor susceptible of misconstruction. ^ ^ ^ ^ 
Whether this government should now enter into treaties contain- 
ing mutual stipulations upon the subject, is a question for us ma- 
ture deliberation. Certain it is, that if the right to detain Amer- 
ican ships on the high seas can be justified on the plea of a 
necessity arising out of the existence of treaties between other 
nations, the same plea may be extended and enlarged by the new 
stipulations of new treaties to which the United States may not 
be a party. This government will not cease to urge upon that of 
Great Britain full and ample remuneration for all losses, whether 
arising from detention or otherwise, to which American citizens 
have heretofore been or may hereafter be subjected, by the exer- 
cise of rights which this government cannot recognize as legiti- 
mate and proper.'' 

Upon Mr. Everett's appointment to succeed Mr. Stevenson, 
« instructions were in the course of preparation" for him, when 
it was announced that Lord Ashburton was to be sent to this 



81 

country. Of course the instructions were not forwarded, as the 
subject was to be discussed in Washington. In writing to you, 
Mr. Webster says: "The whole subject is now before us here, 
or will be shortly, as Lord Ashburton arrived last evening. '^ And 
you probably remember that when, on the 13ih of June, 1842, the 
House of Representatives requested from the Executive a copy of 
the quintuple treaty, and of your remonstrance, and the corres- 
pondence between your government and yourself on the subject, 
the President declined communicating at that time the papers in 
his possession, on the ground that it would not be compatible with 
the public interest,^' negotiation then being in progress. Thus, 
sir, you perceive the British claim of the right to search our ves- 
sels was one of the ''matters in difference" between the countries 
when the negotiation of the treaty of Washington was opened. 
How was it disposed of? 

Lord Aberdeen says: "The claim of a right of search was not 
discussed." Mr. Webster sa,ys : "A mode was resorted to which 
might render unnecessary both the assertion and the denial of 
such claim,'' forgetting, apparently, that the claim had not only 
been repeatedly asserted hui put in force. The object of the stip- 
ulations, he adds, was " to avoid such differences and disputes as 
had already arisen;" "to take away all pretense, whatever for 
interrupting lawful commerce by the visitation of American ves- 
sels." And the President, in his message submitting the treaty 
to the Senate, made a similar statement. Thus, sir, you see the 
question was avoided, and a temporizing policy was pursued, 
which not only left the whole matter in dispute just where it was 
before, but which by seeking, through the force of stipulations for 
the more effectual suppression of t/ie slave trade, which had been 
prohibited thirty-five years before, to obtain t/wse immunities of our 
flag which were already ours by the highest right known to the laws 
of nature and of nations, was a negative admission that England 
has at least some ground for her claim. A policy weak and ques- 
tionable under any circumstances, but eminently so -when pursued 
with a government which is dead to every obligation that may 
chance to impede its aggrandizement, and whose national faith is 
seldom pledged in candor, and never broken for a cause. 

But how did Mr. Webster "avoid" the grave and important 
issue? What was the mode he resorted to? Why, the very 
experiment of a joint blockade, which you so truly inform Lord 
Napier is a total failure. After consulting two Captains in the 
Navy with respect to the number, size and description of vessels 
necessary " to put an entire end to the traffic in slaves," and the 
number of years it would be requisite to maintain the foroe, he 
proposed the 8th, 9th and part of the llth articles, and the 
British negotiator unconditionally accepted them. Sir, you are 
well aware that the proposition has been as one-sided in its effects 
as it was in its origin. It was foreign to the question at issue 
between the parties — much more foreign than the subject of 
"impressment," which Lord Ashburton declined discussing, 



82 

upon the ground that his "mission was mainly the settlement of 
existing subjects of difference." Can you call to mind a single 
point at issue properly pertaining to the suppression of the slave 
trade? Was there the slightest mistrust between the parties ? 
Were not both Governments equally honest in the execution of 
their prohibitory laws? Did not each maintain a naval force on 
the African coast for the purpose? Had not each declared the 
slave trade piracy? Had they not each their official agents on 
the coast to receive and provide for re-captured slaves? Was 
there any difference between them in sentiment, motive or inten- 
tion ? Was the suppression of the traffic in fact an "existing sub- 
ject of difference?" Why then negotiate about it? Wherefore 
Mr. Webster's proposition ? He candidly avows it was to avoid 
the real " subject of difference,'^ which was then, as now, the claim 
of the " right of visitation," and not the suppression of the traffic 
in slaves. 

This disposition of the matter was of course highly acceptable 
to Lord AsHBURTON. No British minister could have the folly to 
refuse such an offer. The true issue was postponed, and the Brit- 
ish government was thereby emboldened not only to continue its 
outrages on the distant coast of Africa, but to flaunt in licensed 
audacity before our doors and mock our flag on our own unguarded 
waters. So much for the treaty. A word, if you please, sir, as 
to its ratification. 

That the treaty was ratified under the delusion that the avoid- 
ance of the issue would amount to a settlement of it, is well 
known. Mr. Calhoun, who was no advocate of the stipulations 
in question, was yet willing to ratify them. He said in plain 
terms, that we had to choose between two objectionable alterna- 
tives, or incur the risk of war, for which he did not think the 
country prepared. With respect to the question of search, he 
said: "It is objected that the arrangement entered into is vir- 
tually an acknowledgment of the right of search. He did not so 
regard it. On the contrary, he considered it, under all the cir- 
cumstances, as a surrender of that claim; a conclusion, which a 
review of the whole transaction, in his opinion, would justity. 
Lord Palmerston, in the first place, claimed the unqualified right 
of search, in which it was understood he was backed by the five 
great powers. Lord Aberdeen, with more wisdom and modera- 
tion, explained it to mean the right of visitation simply; and 
finally, the negotiation is closed without reference to either." 
This "idea was entertained by many other Senators who voted for 
the treaty, and hence the majority by which it was ratified. Mr. 
Webster himself says, somewhere, in relation to the question of 
search as "avoided" in the treaty,, that the last word of negotia- 
tion had been uttered. And the Senate thought so when it ratified 
the treaty. But it was deceived, as it has been more than once, 
by British diplomacy. It is said of Mr. Clayton, that he once 
" remarked, in relation to his famous treaty, " I had a delusive idea 
that Eno-land therein eniraged to retire from her Central American 



83 

usurpations, and in that faith the Senate ratified h." If Mr. 
Webster were alive, he might now, with equal truth, exclaim 
respecting his treaty, '^ I had a delusive idea that England therein 
abandoned her claim to the right of search;" and Mr. Calhoun 
might add, ^' in that faith the Senate ratified it." 

After this imperfect recapitulation, let us view the issue in its 
present form. The case of the Panchita, which occurred a year 
ago, is familiar to all, and the termination of it was full of signifi- 
cance, and served to foreshadow the recent outrages which so 
justly merit the indignation of the country. Mr. Dallas, in his 
despatch to you, of October 9th, 1857, announces the result as 
follows : 

" The particular case would seem to be satisfactorily disposed of. Commander 
Moresby's conduct is disclaimed and censured; he is withdrawn from the station 
as unfit to be trusted there, and express orders are alleged to have been given by 
the Admirality which must prevent the repetition of such acts. 

" It is observable that the disavowal and condemnation of Commander Mores- 
by's proceedings are with great reserve founded exchisively iipon the stipulatio7is 
of the treaty of 1842. Except as inconsistent tcith the arrangements of that treaty^ 
his insult to the national flag, his search and seizure ii-pon mere suspicion, might 
have been unreproved. You will pardon me for suggesting, that while this preten- 
sion of a right to supervise and reform the commercial pursuits of other coun- 
tries, by the means of visit and search, is thus covertly maintained against the 
frank remonstrance of the United States, it m,ay he doubted whether it be consist- 
ent with the natioyial dignity to prolong the exceptionable compact binder whose 
express terms alone an immxmity is recognized! " 

But, sir, in less than one month afterwards the searching com- 
menced in the West Indies. The brig Black Hawk, from Porto 
Rico for New York, was ^'visited," on the 2d of November, by an 
officer of the British gun-boat Jasper, and since then more than 
fifty cases have occurred : The British West India cruisers hav- 
ing precisely the same orders wHth respect to the suppression of 
the slave trade as the African cruisers have. 

Some months ago, sir. Lord Napier made certain representa-* 
tions to you as to the inadequacy of our nava) force on the coast 
of Africa, and called your attention to the fact, that the stipulated 
force of 80 guns was not there present. You replied that the 
term for which a portion of the men in the squadron had enlisted 
being about to expire, they were allowed to return home, but that 
another vessel was fitting out for that coast, and would soon sail. 
The British Government, not content with this, renewed corres- 
pondence on the subject, and so far as we are to judge by the 
action of her cruisers, gave further orders for the search of our 
vessels, not only on the coast of Africa, where such search is 
nothing new, but in the Gulf of Mexico and the adjacent waters. 
The correspondence recently submitted to Congress has been the 
result. And to this I make no apology for recalling your attention. 

A leading feature in your note of the 10th April, is the acknowl- 
edgment of the failure of the joint African blockade. This you 
impress upon the British Minister with a sincerity calculated to 
inspire the hope that you are not averse to the termination of the 
impotent and costly farce. Sixteen years have elapsed since the 
curtain rose, at the conclusion of a palaver which has never seen 



84 

the light; but, if there is now to be a shifting of the scene, from 
Africa to Cuba, allow me, as an interested spectator, to call upon 
you, as chief manager of the staofe, to drop the curtain upon the 
farce, of v/hich the audience is tired, and come to the footlights to 
announce the advent of a tragedy I Imagine, for a moment, the 
loss at which the future historian would find himself in recording 
the event of a war between the two greatest maritime powers on 
earth, only because the planters of Cuba wish to buy a few 
negroes in Africa, to cultivate sugar and other produce, of which 
both powers are among the largest consumers! And conceive, if 
you can, the surprise of his readers when they learn that ten 
times the amount of money has been expended in vain efforts to 
blockade Africa, which would have supplied America with slaves 
and thereby naturally terminated the desire and necessity for 
importing them. Add to this the absurdity of the whole attempt 
to frustrate an evident design of the great Creator, and a picture 
presents itself to which the lapse of time will hardly furnish a 
parallel. Sir, it would be pity to neglect the opportunity, so fully 
do the sentiments of the Administration and the people accord on 
this point. From the President down to the meanest sailor before 
the mast, all regard the blockade an unmitigated humbug, a diplo- 
matic experiment, which experience pronounces utterly inade- 
quate, and altogether disproportionate " to the expenditure of life 
and treasure it has cost." Since the treaty is a failure, what 
remains but to abrogate it? There is something anomalous, to 
use no harsher term, in persisting in a scheme which is acknowl- 
edged to be a fruitless and hopeless failure, and this leads to the 
inconsistency to which I have said your attention would be called. 

I respectfully submit that you have gone a little out of your 
way and have departed from your usual course in making un- 
called for suggestions with respect to the importation of slaves 
into Cuba. You observe to Lord Napier :— " To shut the ports of 
Cuba to their entrance is to shut the ports of Africa to their depart- 
ure.'' In this there is a fallacy as well as an indiscretion. You 
certainly cannot be unaware of the fact that both the French and 
British colonies import negroes. You also must know that the 
Cuban planters are able to outbid them in Africa. And if the 
ports of Cuba were closed, you must see that the French and 
British colonies would immediately fall heir to a monopoly of the 
negroes, and hence would put their own price upon them. The 
res^'ult of this would be to increase the French and British emigra- 
tion traffic, and instead of shutting the ports of Africa to the de- 
parture of negroes, your project of closing the ports of Cuba would 
serve only to divert the importation of negroes from that island to 
the British and French colonies. That this would be a desirable 
consummation to England and France, you may doubt but cannot 
deny. Hence it is that I say your proposition is fallacious. 

But it is also indiscreet; an indiscretion due probably to the 
existence of this unfortunate treaty, but not the less an indis- 
cretion for that. You must know the Spanish character well 



85 

enough to be satisfied that Spanish sentiment is not to be moulded 
into any shape that Englishmen or Americans might desire, and 
that to shut the ports of Cuba against the importation of slaves, is 
to be accomplished in no other way than by blockading the 
island. Your suggestion, then, must either fall to the ground a 
lifeless thing, or else must point to a blockade. The blockade 
now exists. Whether at your suggestion or not, is immaterial. 
With what consistency then and reason can you complain of a 
vigorous search for slaves along the coast and in the harbors of 
Cuba? England has as much right to blockade Cuba as Africa, 
and you have as little right to complain of the one as the other. 
You were satisfied in the case of the Panchita, will you be in the 
others ? 

The London Times says : 

" The slave trade treaties, by creating a mixed relation between war and peace, 
have introduced an unexpected difficulty into maritime law. Belligerent ships of 
war are undoubtedly entitled to visit neutral merchant vessels for the purpose of 
verifying their right of exemption from capture: and, as a right of seizure has 
been specially conceded by Spain and by some other Powers in the case of slav- 
ers, it follows that vessels of those countries are also liable to visitation. It is 
agreed on all hands that no such liability exists on the part of the United States, 
and an American slaver might safely pass through an English squadron with her 
cargo on deck, if no doubt existed as to her nationality. It is only when the stars 
and stripes are supposed to be fraudulently hoisted that the cruiser can pretend 
to visit a vessel which is suspected to be Spanish or Portuguese, as well as to be 
engaged in the slave trade. 

" If it is true that several American vessels have been stopped on this ground 
of suspicion, it cannot be denied that a series of offensive mistakes may require 
explanation, and possibly redress. Gen. Cass seems to be justified in saying 
that the case is analogous to the arrest of a suspected criminal by a policeman, 
who is personally responsible in case of error. If instances of false imprisonment 
occurred in rapid succession, a further question would probably arise as to the 
good faith or discretion of the officers ; and it is barely possible that the com- 
manders of the English cruisers may, in their indignation against the American 
slavers, have misunderstood the extent of their powers, but neither Lord 
Malmesbury nor Admiral Stewart will venture to justify or support any at- 
tempt to claim for England the invidious right of exercising a general maritime 
police. 

"■ The best excuse for the presence of the sqtiadron off the ports of Cuba is to be 
found in the suggestion of the American Government that the blockade should be 
transferred from Africa to the West Indies ; yet it might have been foreseen that the 
vicinity of the unpoptdar flag would serve as a cause of exc^isefor irritation in the 
Union. A Russian fleet in the North Sea would not put an end to all suspicion 
by explaining that it was engaged under some treaty in suppressing the contra- 
band trade of the Norwegian fishermen. The police exercised by the cruisers in 
the gulf is partial and habitually legal, but still it is carried on in American wa- 
ters, and it is a police. If it cannot be withdrawn at once, in immediate deference 
to menacing complaints, the present state of affairs ought to compel an early ter- 
mination of the most anomalous system which ever gave gratuitous provocation 
to foreigners. 

" It is peculiarly unfortunate that the anti-slavery crusade should alienate from 
England the portion of the American community which would otherwise be 
drawn nearer to us by interest and by inclination." 

Your note concludes by saying that the President will execute 
the treaty with "fidelity andefficiency." If by this is meant, as 
I suppose it is, that the usual force will be kept in commission as 
long as the treaty is unrepealed, it is all that can be claimed on 
the score of "fidelity;'' but, sir, when you speak of "efficiency,'* 
I confess your meaning is not so clear. If a cruise of over thirty 



86 

years has failed to suppress the traffic, and we have had cruisers 
there at least that length of time, I am at a loss to understand how 
our mere apology for a navy, which^ instead of protecting our flag 
in our own waters, is signalized by the ^^ grave errors'' committed 
in Nicaragua, can be suddenly exalted to the dignity of '■^efficiencif^ 
on the African coast! How much better would it be if the force 
of yO guns assigned to the British service in Africa were trans- 
ferred to the American service in the Gulf of Mexico to interpose 
their volleys when your country's flag is insulted by inflated and 
drunken British minions ! This reflection, I am confident, has 
more than once aroused the wonted fires of your patriotism. Cher- 
ish it, sir, to the end of your ministerial career, and you will never 
have cause to regret that an unknown friend commends it to yoa. 
The officers of our navy are brave and worthy men, and, hence, 
are as much discouraged and disgusted as their countrymen are 
mortified, at their being confined to the ignoble occupation of 
vainly essaying to run down a few unarmed slavers, w^iile a foe- 
man worthy of their steel rides with impunity over their flag in 
foreign ports and on their own coast. 

It may be that the recall of a portion of our African squadron 
would be the signal for a more frequent search of American ves- 
sels in that quarter, though, as a matter of fact, I question it. 
But suppose It did occasion that inconvenience, it only proves the 
necessity of a speedy settlement of the question of search ! If 
such considerations are to prevent the transfer of our fleets from 
one quarter to another at our own pleasure, then the British claim 
is tacitly acknowledged, and it is just as incumbent on us to keep 
80 guns on the coast of Cuba to prevent search as on the coast of 
Africa. And, if this be the case, you might, with as much pro- 
priety, stipulate with Lord Napier to keep 80 guns hovering 
around Cuba to prevent the landing, or as you term it, ^^entrance" 
of slaves and the search of our vessels, as Mr. Webster stipulated 
with Lord Ashburton for a like force to prevent the embarkation 
or ''departure" of slaves from Africa and the search of our vessels 
on that coast. The object in blockading Cuba would be the same 
as that in blockading Africa. TVe are bound by treaty to effect the 
one, why not the oilier? The law of nations sanctions the one as 
much as the other. Did you never reflect, sir, that you 
have as clear a right to forbid the Cuban planter's purchas- 
ing A SLAVE AS YOU HAVE TO FORBID THE AFRICAN CHIEFS SELLING 

him ? If consistency is a virtue, let me commend it, through you, 
to the President. In the same sentence in which he promises to 
continue one blockade, despite of its acknowledged failure, he de- 
clines entering "into any new stipulations'' to carry on the other, 
which he admits would "close the slave mart of the world." Con- 
sistency requires that the two coasts, the termini of the traffic, 
should be on the same footing, and, so far as our governmeat is 
concerned, should have a police squadron of 80 guns at both or at 
neither. He should now either stipulate for the prevention of 
" their entrance," or decline the further obligation to prevent 
" their departure." The force on the African coast you acknovvl- 



87 

edge to be a failure; withdraw it, sir, and the problem is 
SOLVED I Do this, and you reduce the buyer and the seller to a 
just footing, while our navy can be employed in the pursuit of 
higher and nobler ends. Our merchant vessels also will be enti- 
tled to the same immunities upon every sea, and not have to rely 
upon the questionable efficiency of a convoy of 80 guns on the 
sickliest and most dangerous coast in the world. 

I do not blame you for refusing to stipulate further with the 
British government; I only affirm that in so doing our policy in 
1858 is different from what it was in 1842. The change is an im- 
provement, and, it is to be hoped, is a step towards a settlement 
of the question of search. As to the efficiency of our navy to 
suppress the slave trade, I confess entire indifference, in this con- 
nection. Illicit traffic always has and will exist, and the end must 
be that either the law or the traffic falls into disuse, according as 
the one or the other is wrong or inexpedient. Most social evils 
work their own cure, and frequently do so soonest when left to 
themselves. The slave trade, if such an evil, is no exception. 
As a permanent thing, municipal law can effect but little either 
for its suppression or promotion. If, by such laws merely, it is 
checked at one point it will appear at another, and if abolished in 
one form it will be established in another, as the Cooly and Ap- 
prentice systems fully attest. Cupidity and servitude are co-ex- 
istent with humanity ! Labor, whatever its name or status, can 
always be bought with money. The traffic, then, which nations 
have so long been vainly seeking to suppress, if right, will never 
be permanently abolished by human law; and, if wrong, would 
perhaps come to a suicidal end as soon by being let alone as by 
any other means. The generation which forbade it has not long 
passed away ; no one can predict what another may do. Fifty 
years comprise but a short period in a people's history. Time 
and experience are required either to confirm or to change the 
policy of great nations. Ours is yet in its infancy, and, as you 
can testify, has hardly yet fallen upon a settled policy of its own. 
But, sir, be these things as they may, the search of our vessels is 
a different proposition. It is a usurpation, an infringement of a 
national right, and, as persisted in by the British government, is 
a deliberate insult to the country. You are in a position to eflect 
much in the settlement of the issue. After exacting ample satis- 
faction for past offenses, it is your duty to require security and 
exemption for the future. 

I presume it were needless for me to remind you of the object 
in view when our Government declared the slave trade piracy, 
but I question if it is generally understood throughout the coun- 
try. A single resolution of the House of Representatives (l823) 
explains it : 

Resolved, That the President be requested to enter upon and prosecute, from 
time to lime, such negotiations with the several maritime powers of Europe and 
America as he may deem expedient for the eflectual abolition of the slave trade, 
and Its ultimate denunciation as piracy under the laws of nations, by the consent 
of the civilized world. 

The President, in compliance with the request, submitted the 



88 

proposition to Russia, the Netherlands, France, Spain, Portugal, 
Colombia, and Buenos Ayres; but none of them came into the 
measure, and the object was frustrated. But negotiations were 
then, and had for some time previously, been pending with the 
British Government, and one of the conditions which hastened 
the treaty negotiated by Mr. Rush, and signed at London on the 
13th March, 1824, was, as expressed by John Quincy AdaAs, Sec- 
retary of State, in his instructions to our minister, that " the Brit- 
ish Government should agree to treat upon this subject, on the 
basis of a legislative prohibition of the slave trade by both par- 
ties, under the penalties of piracy." This condition met the " un- 
hesitating consent" of the British Plenipotentiaries, as Mr. Rush 
informs us, '^provided we could arrive at a common mind on all 
the other parts of the plan proposed;" prominent among which 
was a mutual right of search. Well, sir, this concession of the 
right of search was incorporated in the treaty, and, within a few 
days after it was signed, Parliament complied with the conditions 
laid down hy our Government by passing an act which punishes 
slave trading with death, without benefit of clerg)^, and loss of 
lands, goods and chattels, as pirates, felons and robbers upon the 
seas ought to suffer." Down to this point everything went on 
smoothly ; but judge of the chagrin of the British government, 
when, after faithfully complying with our condition, the Ameri- 
can Senate refused to consent to theirs, and would not ratify the 
treaty. A feeling of resentment naturally sprang up, and Eng- 
land conceived she had been jockeyed out of her right to search 
for the newly-made pirates. Negotiations were again opened 
when Mr. Clay was Secretary of State, but the right of search 
was again refused in spite of the piracy act of Parliament. This 
is the origin of the British claim, on the ground of the traffic's 
being piracy. And, sir, upon reflection, you will find that if it is 
without force it is at least plausible. 

A pirate is " hostis hiunanse generis/' and all who are declared 
to be such by a formal act of government are expatriated; for a 
pirate is without country. But all national vessels have a right 
to capture pirates, and when the fact that the United States have 
declared a certain description of their citizens to be pirates is 
coupled with the notorious fact, that the American flag is the one 
under which the alleged piracy is committed, the temptation to 
search our vessels is indeed sore, and it seems difficult to deny to 
all nations a right to search for the pirates, without being amena- 
ble to the charge of encouraging piracy. 

I, therefore, submit to your judgment whether, seeing the ob- 
ject of declaring^ the traffic piracy has not been and will not be 
attained, that it is not piracy under the law of nations, it would 
not be better to repeal the piracy act and let things revert to their 
former condition, ivhen the British cruisers had no pretext to search 
for pirates ! Such repeal need not in any way serve to revive the 
slave trade in this country. It is here prohibited by more than 



one statute ; and as to other countries, the least we have to do 
with their affairs, the better will we attend to our own. 

I know, sir, it is not for you to repeal this piracy act, but it is 
for 3^ou, and every other American citizen, to weigh it in one 
scale and the inconveniences growing out of it in the other. Nor 
is it your province to abrogate the eighth article of the treaty of 
Washington. But since you have, from the first, opposed it, upon 
grounds which experience has proved to he just and solid, it lies, 
perhaps, more in your power than any other man in America, to 
correct the great error then committed, and forever settle the ques- 
tion of search. Did you ever enquire why five years was the period 
agreed upon for the first trial of the experiment? If so, let me ask 
you to ascertain, from the official sources at your command, what 
it has cost the country in ''life and treasure" during the last fif- 
teen years, and then inform the people whether it has been an 
economical or a costly evasion of an issue which is now further 
from adjustment than it was when Lord Ashburton finished his 
labors among us. 

A word in conclusion. You may safely rely upon it, the ques- 
tion OF SEARCH WILL NEVER BE SETTLED WHILE THE PIRACY ACT 
AND THE 8tH ARTICLE OF THE TREATY OF WASHINGTON REMAIN UN- 
REPEALED. Have you, then, the resolution and courage to urge the 
Administration to lop off these unmeaning excrescences and save the 
country from the embarrassments they entail? Do this, sir, and 
if your efforts are crowned with success, the cheering reflection of 
your declining years will be, that in your country's cause you 
have not lived in vain. 



ERRATA. 

Page 10, line 20 from bottom, for ^' or best exists/' &c., read 
" or at best exists," &c. 

Page 20, line 1, for " our sources" read other sources/' 

Page 20, line 15 from bottom, for "devil" read ''devils.^' 

Page 27, line 17 from bottom, for '^ largest average" read 
*' largest annual average." 

Page 42, line 16 from bottom, for " Z« Seine Imperieure,'^ read 
*^ La Seine Infirieure.'^ 

Page 42, line 21, omit "cts." 

Page 45, line 6, for ''slaves" read ^^ slave.'' 



